


Storm Within

by WriteandRoller00



Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers: Prime
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Barrelroller is trying his best, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Flashbacks, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Megatron is a jerk, Nightmares, Past Relationship(s), Science Experiments, Starscream is a damaged birdie, main canon story for Barrelroller, some cute chapters, some sad chapters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-09
Updated: 2018-12-08
Packaged: 2019-06-07 23:54:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 36,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15230832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WriteandRoller00/pseuds/WriteandRoller00
Summary: Barrelroller has been threw the pits and back, but he'd much rather suffer his pain alone. He wasn't ready to be thrown back into the war yet, but of course it was bound to happen. Everyone had forgotten about him, or didn't even know that he existed. That didn't matter, since he was only here for one mech. And that mech was Starscream.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoy the newest story!

_Many vorns ago on Cybertron before the War…_

Four cybertronian jets flew over Vos as they made their way to the tallest skyscraper in the seeker city. This Skyscraper was called the Lookout, because anyone could see all the way to the other side of the western hemisphere Cybertron from the top of the building and it was also one of the best places in Vos to see the sunrise in the early light-cycle.

Three out of the four jets looked almost identical to each other, minus the paint coats. They flew around the bigger jet, which was navy-blue with a dark grey offset and seemed to be leading the group as they flew over the tower so they could land on the observation deck at the summit. The three identical planes transformed first, moving away to allow the bigger jet to have enough room to transform before running off to go explore the platform. One of the smaller mech stayed close to the bigger jet as its lookalikes went off on their own to sit on the edge of the platform and chat.

“They act like children.” the smaller mech commented, sounding disappointed, but endearing of them. “What am I going to do with them?”

“I don’t know, Starscream.” the bigger jet replied back, rubbing the seeker’s wings to try and ease them. “But whatever it is, I am sure you will be a great trine leader, no matter what.”

“At least someone believes in me.” Starscream muttered back, leaning closer to the large jet and enjoying the wing rub he was getting. He was stressed about a lot of things, including the fact that he was now an official leader of a trine and had to worry about his trinemates constantly. He also had a bunch of academy reports due that afternoon and wasn’t in the right mind to do them, so escaping to the Lookout was the best idea that his roommate could come up with. “Thank you, Barrelroller.”

“It’s not a problem.” he answered back, smiling slightly as he watched the other seekers seem so talk up a storm without them. The navy plated jet silently watched and smiled more when the mech he was relieving started purring against his side, signaling that the rub was working and Starscream had finally relaxed completely. Barrelroller chuckled, finishing with one small pat on the smaller jet’s back before removing his servo, even though he didn’t want to.

“Are you two coming over here or are you going to start making out?!” the purple accented seeker called out to Barrelroller and Starscream all the way across the platform, only to be smacked in the back of the helm by the blue and black accented seeker beside him.

Starscream’s wings shot up in embarrassment and rage started fuming behind his ruby red optics, making them pulse a little brighter. All the large jet could do was chuckle softly and watched as the small seeker stormed over to his trinemate and proceeded to scold him for saying such a thing. Barrelroller followed over and took a seat on the edge of the platform next to the only seeker not involved with the situation. “I’m sorry about Skywarp, Barrelroller. He doesn’t know how to hold his glossa.”

“It is fine, Thundercracker.” the larger mech replied, patting the seeker on the back before leaning back to watch the dark, black sky start to turn orange and yellow with colors of the upcoming sunrise. “It doesn’t affect me as much as it does for Screamer. I wish he would relax more before he blows a gasket.”

“You and me both.” TC replied, laughing a bit as he looked over as his trinemates fighting verbally with each other.

After a while, Starscream gave up on trying to convince Skywarp otherwise and went to go sit near his roommate to avoid more conflict. He walked over in between Thundercracker and Barrelroller and sat himself on the larger jet’s lap, leaning back against his friend’s chestplates as he too watched the sunrise. He decided to ignore Skywarp’s antics. The larger jet’s sparkbeat was loud against his audial, but Starscream didn’t mind since it was a distraction from his lewd brother.

“Are you alright, Star?” the mech asked, resting a servo on the grey and red seeker’s side. “I am sorry if I make you uncomfortable around your trine.”

“No!” Starscream reinforced, putting a clawed servo on the large jet’s chestplate and leaning to prove his point. He flinched and drew back a bit after yelling at his friend. “No, it’s not you. Skywarp is just being a pain in the aft.” That earned him a “hey!” from his trinemate.

The other three chuckled while relaxing back into the moment. Starscream swiveled himself back around in Barrelroller’s lap to watch the star they orbited around rise over the horizon. The other two seekers were leaning against each other, chuckling silently at their leader who was cuddling up to his roommate a little too intimately. The seeker didn’t seem to notice Skywarp and Thundercracker smiling at him like he was the best mech on Cybertron, even if he thought he was. The larger jet still had his servo draped over his side and he was just loving the attention he was getting.

“Starscream, you amaze me sometimes.” Barrelroller commented out loud, deep Vosian accent ringing through the air. The seeker looked up at the jet and smiled warmly, a small blue blush forming on his face. “It has been a while since I have had some good friends like you and your brothers.”

“Um... th-thank you.” the smaller jet stuttered, curling up a little more to soak in the heat the larger jet was radiating. “I’ve haven’t done anything friend-worthy for you, though. You’re the one who protects us when flying and shares your shanix with us when we probably don’t deserve it.”

“Yeesh, Star.” Warp commented, looking over from next to TC. “Way to kill the big guy’s compliment. And here I thought you loved being complimented.”

“Oh don’t worry.” Barrelroller reassured with a snide tone. “He does. I’ve seen him sit at the underclassmech’s table just so all the aspiring seekers hoping to join the Seeker Elite can complement his accomplishments.”

Starscream huffed, crossing his arms over his chest at the thought of what had been happening. “So what. They don’t have to, but who am I to stop them if they choice to accept my feats as superior as they are and compliment me on them. It’s not doing any harm to them.”

“You don’t need to go fishing for compliments.” the larger jet replied, rubbing the seeker’s wing lightly to calm him again. “I can complement you whenever you want, Star. If you hang around others enough, you will get awarded for your looks and actions by your friends and other who witness your feats.”

“You have it easy though!” the grey and red seeker protested. “Everyone thinks you the handsomest mech on campus and you’re a triple-changer! I have to work extra hard because look at me! I’m just a tiny seeker and no one takes me seriously anymore!”

“After that party a year ago, I don’t think anyone does.” the purple and black seeker commented, earning a laugh from Barrelroller.

“What a night that was. I remembered how you stumbled into the dorm, extremely overcharged and delirious. I was sitting in the chair in the living room, studying for the midterm like everyone was supposed to be, and you come in-hmmp!” Two servos flew up to the mech’s mouth, cutting off the rest of the conversation as a very blue-hued seeker was holding his mouth shut. Barrelroller sighed behind the grey servos and peeled them off his face as his and Starscream’s optics met. “Right. I am sorry, Starscream. My lipplates are sealed.”

“Aww come on!” Skywarp complimented. “We were getting to the good part!”

The purple mech was elbowed in the midsection as his dark blue trinemate gave him a waring look. “It’s not our story to tell.” TC reminded his brother, seemingly glaring at the warper but not menacingly. He paid no mind to the pout Skywarp gave and focused back on Barrelroller and his trine leader. “What are you planning on doing after the Academy? You’ve never really told us, Barrelroller.”

“Me?” the triple-changer asked, looking down at the mech curled up him his midsection. “I was thinking of staying in Vos. I have nothing left in Iacon since my carrier passed so I am probably going to see if I can apply as the next head scientist for Vos. The current scientist’s run ends in a couple of vorns and I will have graduated by then. By then, I will have my own apartment and I can live by my own food instead of the academy’s. No offense to them, but I’m not quite sure the mechs there know how to make any sort of energon correctly.”

“Maybe you should just come and cook for us.” Skywarp commented. “You could cook for the Seeker Elite and we’d never go hungry again with you giving us specialized energon and treats all the time.”

“I would still charge you.” Barrelroller stated back, getting a pout from the purple and black seeker. “And anyway, I still want to find an alternative way of making energon. I’m an energon chemist, medical chemist and organic scientist. If Cybertron could exploit more space travel and we could find elements that could help substitute for the minerals in the mines, we could make energon farms around the galaxy out of organic materials. Think off all the problems that would solve with medicine and foreign species relations.”

 “What’s stopping you then?” the silver seeker asked, playing with his clawed digits again the larger mech’s arm. “You an above average student and your scientific experiments and labs are incredible. That nanite booster you make could change medicine for everyone on Cybertron. I’m sure the Vosian Council would listen to you. I could come with you to support your research, if you’d like.”

“Are you alright, Starscream?” Thundercracker asked, smirking a bit. “I’ve never heard you ever give out so many compliments to one mech in one sitting that isn’t yourself.”

“What! I’m not allowed to support my dorm mate and his endeavors?!” the trine leader shot up and screeched at them, a slight blush on his face. “He supported me when I did my tryouts for the Seeker Elite and even helped me with team fly maneuvers when you two were in recharge! I’m simply returning the favor!”

“Starscream, you don’t need to yell. I was joking.” the dark blue seeker commented after he took his servos off of his audial receptors. “I’m happy for you, but you seemed to be a little uncharacteristic to me. That’s all.”

“It doesn’t seem that way to me. When Star is not stressed, sleep deprived, or in any sort of fit with someone else, he is a pretty happy seeker. Whenever we finish with our papers, he usually relaxes and we just chat in the living room before going to our separate rooms.” Barrelroller commented, smiling in appreciation for Starscream’s offer. “And thank you for the offer, Starscream. I will take it under consideration, but I would rather wait until I graduate before I go barging into the Vosian Council and claiming I have a way to solve Cybertron’s growing energon problem.”

“I suppose, Barrelroller.” the trine leader answered back, smiling a bit. He looked out at the horizon and watched as the starts in the distance started to fade at the star they were orbiting started to peak over the side of Cybertron. He wanted to know what was living out there and if they were as interesting as his roommate proposed. He looked up at the mech and nuzzled his helm against the triple-changer’s neck cables, giggling a bit as happiness started fluttering behind his chestplates. “Are you still going to help me write my paper?”

“No, you’re writing it yourself.” the triple-changer protested. “I took you up here so you could relax and then write your paper when we get back. I am not writing another paper for you. I would not even consider this assignment a paper. All you have to do it write up a summary of the novel that we read two days ago and choose one of the events to compare to real life. It is stupidly simple and even TC and Skywarp have done it already. They turned theirs in yesterday.”

“Actually, I got TC to write mine.” Skywarp blurted up and smiled like it was some righteous act. “I didn’t like the novel so I was playing on my personal datapad the entire time during class.”

“Not my point, but okay.” the larger jet grounded out sadly. “What I mean is, you cannot have everything in life handed to you in a silver energon cube.”

“But why can’t you do it?” Starscream whined, rubbing his helm against the underside of Barrelroller’s chin and making a pouty face. “You’re so much better at it than I am and I thought you said you’d do anything for me after my incident.”

“That was ten mega-cycles ago when you were restricted to berthrest by Airdrop and you couldn’t go anywhere inside of our dorm. This is completely different. I am not doing such a simple paper for you.” Barrelroller replied, not budging in his argument even though he enjoyed the physical bribing. “Besides. If you are going to be a squadron leader in the Seeker Elite, you are going to have to do all your own paperwork.”

The smaller mech groaned and banged his helm on Barrelroller’s shoulder plating. “Please don’t make me do this, Barrelroller. I’m tired and I have so much other work to do. Why must you torture me so?” Of course, Starscream was being dramatic and the triple-changer knew better than to fall for that. He sighed, rubbing one servo down his face as he looked at the seeker pouting at him front under his helm.

“If you do your paper all by yourself, I will make you Vosian energon cakes with the special mercury sauce you like.” the large mech bribed, smirking a bit. “I will even give you a wing rub after you are done if you don’t complain.”

The seeker shot up with his cheeks tinted blue as his ruby red optics brightening a bit. “Deal.” the mech said with no hesitation as he cuddled up to the large jet and yawned, flaring his wings. He hated walking up so early in the day cycle, but he suffered through it since Barrelroller would make their energon. He would put a whole bunch of magnesium in it and their systems would instantly jump start. The triple-changer was always good with energon, which is why he was pursuing the job of being an energon chemist. He was also very good at bribing the seeker with treats to do things.

“How do you do it?” Thundercracker asked, seemingly baffled. “We’ve never been able to get him to agree to something so fast.”

“Magic.” Barrelroller answered and started to pet the seeker’s frame. The little mech was curled up against his chestplates again and his gorgeous wings were twitching as they felt the air around them. The triple-changer gently brushed his fingers over them and smiled and they pressed harder against his servo. He was a people mech. He knew how to talk to others and make them listen. He also knew how to listen to people and make sure that they were heard as well, which made the large jet one of the more popular mechs. He honestly hated all the attention, but was happy to stick through it if Starscream loved it so much.

Soon enough, the sun rose up over the horizon of Cybertron and distracted the mechs for each other for a moment. They all watched one of the massive stars that appeared around their planet show itself. Starscream was glad Barrelroller took himself out to see this today. It made him feel better and he was even promised treats and a wing rub later. He looked up at the triple-changer’s face and smiled, leaning up and placing a chaste kiss on the mech’s cheek. “Thank you.” he whispered and giggled a bit.

The triple-changer smiled back, returning the favor with a chaste kiss of his own on the seeker’s forehelm. “You are welcome, Starscream. I made a promise that I would never leave after the incident, and I plan to uphold that promise.” The two mechs chuckled at each other as he pressed their helms together for a moment. Everything was prefect and soon, they would be graduating and able to start their own lives.

But oh how the vorns have changed them.


	2. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Starscream has a lot of regrets about his life and wishes he could go back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoy!

Starscream missed that damned triple-charger and hated his internal systems at the same time, but all he could really do.

The seeker was trapped, not physically but emotionally with fear and terror of what would happen if he left. Everyone else didn’t care what happened to him and that was it. He had no one anymore since the support he had from the Decepticons had been ripped away the moment Megatron came back. All the vehicons started to tease and to poke fun at the mech from Vos when he limped through the halls of the Nemesis, plating barely holding itself together. No one helped him and watched the mech everyone knew that Megatron’s punching bag limp towards the medbay.

Luckily, today was a lighter day. One a section of a mine was lost, but Starscream had been in charge of it. The seeker was outnumbered and the Autobots clearly had the advantage over him and the eradicons he was sent with to oversee the mine. No one got away with any energon, but that section of the mine was destroyed and sealed behind a wall of rubble and rocks. The air commander had taken a hit to the back of the helm and lower leg when fighting and was on the way to get it fixed after landing, but something in the back of his processor told him that he wasn’t going to escape this time.

The seeker ran into Megatron in the hall a few doors down from the medbay and didn’t have time to even react before he was dragged off to some abandoned part of the warship by the war monger and only screams could be heard. Two hours passed before the brutal leader had become bored and left the beaten seeker without a care in the universe. It took a while for Starscream to uncurl from the fetal position he was frozen in on the floor and begrudgingly make his way to the medbay, where hopefully Megatron wasn’t. He knew that the power-hungry mech won’t call for Knockout, since he hadn’t before.

Once he entered the medbay, he looked around and behind him to make sure the titan wasn’t lurking around anywhere to grab him to drag off to some Primus forsaken cell to beat again. Megatron, luckily, was nowhere in the facility but sadly another psychopath he hated was sitting right in front of him on a medical berth. Airachnid, the spider glitch herself, was getting one of her legs fixed by the cherry red mech while his assistant was organizing tools across the room from him. The seeker cursed, wishing the blasted femme wasn’t here right now as he felt his usual snappy personality start to waver as he lost more energon. He looked behind him at the door as he carefully tried to sneak back to the door and make it back to his habsuite.

“Primus, Starscream!!” Breakdown exclaimed when he caught sight of the seeker. The mech’s wings shot up as he was startled and lost his balance, colliding with the wall behind him. Everyone was way too loud from him and his audio receptors were still buzzing from all the screaming from himself and Megatron combined. “What happened to you?!”

The other two cybertronians in the room looked over and Knockout cursed under his exvent as his optics scanned over the beyond damaged seeker. He quickly finished Airachnid’s leg weld and motioned Breakdown to go over and help the poor mech. The large upper bodied mech nodded and walked over to where the commander had collapsed on the floor and struggling to pick himself back up again. He simply didn’t have the strength to anymore, since he was losing more and more energon by the second. What Breakdown didn’t expect was almost getting clawed in the face by the seeker when he touched his shoulder plating.

“Get away from me, filthy grounder!” he hissed and moved to curl up in a ball against the wall. Of course, Starscream didn’t mean that since he and the medical team have become good friends because of how much time the seeker had spent there. But because his systems were still in a flight or fight response, this senses and processor were telling him to not let anyone to touch him. Everyone was now an enemy to him until his frame was healed or he lost consciousness. And thankfully for Knockout and Breakdown, the seeker’s vision was already going blurry.

“What’s wrong with Screamer there? I thought there were only two Autobots that attacked that mine earlier.” Airachnid asked as she stood up to test her leg, making sure the welding held up as Knockout started to get his tools together on Starscream on the next berth over.

“Are you blind?” the medic asked, getting everything in order and preparing a syringe full of sleeping agents for the frantic seeker he needed to work on. “The mech looks like he’s ready to fall apart at any moment now. And if you don’t know what happens on this ship by now, you’re truly lost, Airachnid.”

Breakdown grunted as he finally was able to pick the seeker up and carry him over to the medical berth where Knockout was waiting with the sedative and sleeping agents. He had to basically bear hug the seeker around his upper frame so that he couldn’t move his arms to claw at his face or arms. The spider bot found this slightly amusing, but was more curious about what the cherry red medic had mentioned. She had only been on the Nemesis for a while, but knew that Starscream had always seemed to be neutral to any pain he received from the Autobots. Why would this be causing him to be so feral?

The scene started to bore her and Airachnid decided to leave and find out on her own why Starscream was acting this way. Once the spider bot felt the medbay, Knockout moved quickly to start fixing the damaged seeker. Breakdown sat him down on the medical berth and injected the sedative into the squirming mech’s systems. Luckily, the effects of the medicine were strong enough to numb the pain burning the commander’s frame. Afterwards, the medic injected the sleeping agents and Breakdown at finally able to place the seeker down on the medical for them to work on.

The damage wasn’t that severe as the other times that Starscream had come face to face with Megatron’s fist, but it was up there. News had spread around the Nemesis of how the air commander seemed to have disappeared and Knockout sighed, looking up from the report he had to write on how much medical energon he had used and update everyone’s medical reports. The grey and red seeker was already up from his repairs with an energon line connected to his left chestplate. It was weird to see Starscream like this, since after most repairs the seeker would be up and off to go find something to plot about. But this time, the seeker seemed void of anything but pain and sadness as the passion in his optics faded.

After a while of staring down at his servos, the seeker pulled out his personal datapad from his subspace and pulled the first picture he had taken. It was a picture of his trinemate and himself after they all received personal datapads from the Vosian Academy for research purposes. Of course, this was their first day on campus and before they went to find their dorms. He started scrolling through the pictures and his expression seemed to sadden every time he flicked to a new photo. Soon, he was silently crying to himself and had to put down the pad so he could hide his helm in his knee joints.

“Starscream?” the red sports car asked as he turned away from the computer and walked over to sit with the seeker. “You’re being very uncharacteristic today. What’s the matter?”

Starscream didn’t answer back, fearfully that his voice would crack and become raw from how much he was crying behind his legs. The medic sighed and looked down at the datapad next to commander’s pede. He picked it up and looked at the picture currently on screen, staring in surprise for a bit. It was like the photo was from an alternate dimension where Starscream smiled happily and it wasn’t some kind a smirk. It looked to be from the seeker’s graduation day from the academy he attended. He was hugging a large mech, made the same height as Megatron and he looked happier than the medic as ever seen. He scanned through a couple of the pictures to see that the mech was in most of them.

The seeker finally got himself under control enough to where he could look up from his knees, but wished he hadn’t so he couldn’t see Knockout going through his photos. He snatched the pad away from Knockout and clutched it against his chestplates to keep the mech from seeing anything else he might have had on there. He turned off the pad and growled at the medic. “Hasn’t anyone told you to not look at other people’s belongings?!”

“Who was that mech, Starscream?” the cherry red medic asked, curious to why those pictures made Starscream sad. Even though the seeker was angry, he could still see all the sadness seeping through his optics. After the question was asked, all the anger faded to what seemed to be guilt and regret. He looked down at the pad and stored it back in his subspace, leaning his helm against the wall next to him and looking down at his servos. He flexed his claws once and tried to forget about it, but he couldn’t after what had just happened. “Starscream?” the medic tried again.

“I don’t want to talk about it…” the seeker grounded out and made it clear that he didn’t want to discuss this with the medic at the moment. “Am I allowed to return to my habsuite?”

“You usually barge out of here as soon as you wake up.” the medic commented as he when back over to the medbay’s computer terminal. “I don’t see why I would stop you this time.”

The seeker glared at the mech after the comment, but he knew it was true. The air commander slowly uncurled from his ball position and stood up from the medical berth. He tugged off the energon line and took one last look around the medical bay and up at the cameras, knowing that Soundwave was probably watching. He shuddered a bit and walked out of the bay so he could return to his own berth. Starscream looked around the hallways before making his way down it. The seeker didn’t like being alone in these hallways since it made him easy to see and with his emotions still out of whack, he didn’t want to risk being confronted.

A few short klicks got the seeker down to the hall that held his hab. The seeker’s wings relaxed a bit from being so tense and Starscream smiled to himself. He walked towards his habsuite and pressed in the key code into the pad, ignoring the fact that he felt something was wrong and focusing on getting to his berth so he could recharge for a few klicks. The door opened and before the mech could step inside, a gust of cold air blew over him from behind.

_“Starscream, why did you not come get me?”_

The seeker jumped back and looked around the hallway to see that no one was there. He heard his voice. Barrelroller’s voice. He looked around, hoping for a second that the reports were wrong but soon lost his hope when he didn’t hear the voice again. He sighed, looking back down the hallway before walking into this room and closing his door behind him to go sit down against it. He hated this. He hated what his life had become. He hated who he had become. Before the war, he would have never done anything like this. He was happy before the war, much happier than here. And it was all because he didn’t listen.

The air commander slowly slid up from the floor and dragged himself over to the berth across the room, looking like a Vosian energon cakes. Once he reached it, he climbed on and buried his helm into the pillows as he pulled out his datapad again. He turned it on and scrolled to the last picture of his pad. It was of himself and Barrelroller on top of the Lookout, watching the sunrise again like they would do in the academy. The large mech had stolen his pad and taken a picture of the seeker sleeping against his chestplates. At the bottom, the triple-changer had written a little note on the photo. _I will never be far from you wherever you are, Starscream. I love you with all my spark. Thank you._

The seeker was crying again. He hated himself for what he did. He should have listened to Barrelroller when the mech had told him to stay away from Megatron as those vorns ago. He wouldn’t be beaten within every inch of his life each day and would be with someone he cared about. He wouldn’t be so angry and conniving all the time and he would be able to smile again without it hurting his spark each time he tried. He remembered a time when he could say that Barrelroller was wrong about Megatron, but after all the beatings and the fear that he been infused into the mech, he could now see more than ever that no one cared about him anymore.

Today was a special day, too. Starscream placed the datapad on the table next to his berth, and looked up at the ceiling. As much as he loved the mech, it’s not like he could just go tell him. After the Exodus from Cybertron, a census was taken in both fractions and the Decepticons were able to hack the Autobots’s database to see how many had survived the on planet war. The seeker was in charge of checking the list and today was the day all those vorns ago that he checked that list.

Barrelroller’s name was crossed out from the line and proclaimed him dead.

✢✢✢✢✢✢

Meanwhile on the bridge, Megatron was watching over the ground of the planet below when Soundwave sent a map of the Decepticon mines to the computer screen in front of the metal titan. It had a blinking red light on one of the smaller mines, but it came up as cybertronian. The signal couldn’t identify if the signal was Autobot or Decepticon, but the war lord wasn’t going to take his chances this time.

“Airachnid.” the leader of the Decepticon called out to the spider bot behind him. “Since Starscream is occupied today, go and find out what belongs to the signal. I don’t want any more Autobots destroying the mines after today’s events.”

“Of course, my liege.” the femme replied, bowing before she turned to fulfil the task. She stopped and turned back around to the warlord. “Excuse me for asking, but I happened to be in the med bay today when Starscream came in after the mine incident. I believe there were only two Autobots attacking the mine at the time, but he looked like a fleet of them tore him to pieces. Would you have any idea what happened?”

Megatron didn’t answer for a while before he chuckled darkly. “Starscream needed to learn what happens when you fail, Airachnid. He shows too much insubordination to me and I acted accordingly. I am more than happen to treat you with the same procedure that our SIC when through today if you fail me as well. I suppose you get going.”

Airachnid didn’t need another word before he made her way out of the room to avoid getting punched into a wall. Hopefully today’s hunt brought her some type of amusement.


	3. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Barrelroller tries to find one good reason that Optimus chose Earth as their base planet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoy!

Barrelroller had been on Earth for only a week and he was slowly starting to hate the planet more the more time he spent on it. Why Prime choose this planet to protect, he had no clue since this experience was least than pleasing.

The triple-changer, like most other Autobots who had escaped Cybertron during the Exodus, received a message from Optimus Prime to make their way to Earth. Of course, Barrelroller was on the other side of the universe by then and he decided to slowly make his way over to the planet. Being a mech of science, he continued his life’s work of energon chemistry and organic studies as he travelled, observing different planets with organic life and taking notes on such. Most of the organic species he met were extreme docile and seemed like more gathers than hunters as he had seen. Some of the species were hostile, but none of their weapons seemed to harm him.

What he was really after thought was if the planets he visited had any untapped energon on them from when ancient explorers might have left some there. He searched for energon on these planets and took samples and cataloged the surrounding rock composition. His academy days were over, but he was aiming towards his goal of finding alternate ways of making energon other than just mining it. And now that Cybertron was depleted of its life force, the need for energon was high in demand for both fractions and Barrelroller’s long awaited project of making an organic version of energon could finally start. The Vosian Senate never gave him the okay, but since the Senate didn’t exist anymore, what did he have to lose?

The jet flew around the universe, collecting energon samples from planets and comparing the types of elements that grew around them and the environment they grew best in. Most of the environments were in cave systems and large craters were a lot of natural elements collected from the runoff of rain or other means of soil transfer. Higher grades of energon grew in areas with more carbon was located and the lower grades mostly grew underground, where they was none. His idea was that if he could simulate the type of environment that energon grew best in, he could make a radioactive organic compound from different types of large scale plants and synthase energon that way. Of course, this was all theoretical, but he would make it work somehow.

Finally, he got to Earth a long while after Prime had sent out his call to the Autobots to join up at the organic planet and he didn’t know what to expect. It took him a few days to figure out many things about the planet. The planet itself, from what Barrelroller had toured through, was a beautiful planet with a large diversity of plants and animals on it. It may not be as big as other planets he’s been to, but this was one of the prettier ones. He also figured out that the humans that inhabited the planet seemed to have no idea that cybertronians existed, but believed in aliens. Some of the sentient species post pictures of what they believe to be ships and other things, but are clearly not. It was all very silly to him.

Besides the point of the human race being one seemingly fueled on greed and violence, he was thankful the humans had aircraft that would work as a disguise while he was on Earth. He didn’t scan for a new altmode, not thinking he would need one because he was barely visible when flying through the atmosphere. Most humans were looking down at their devices most of the time anyway so he could pass off as a military jet until then. Finding energon seemed to be harder than he thought as well on this planet, since humans haven’t mined it at all and there was no record of it in the humans’ database.

The first few days were brought a string of failures since most of the caves he found were either mined completely or weren’t growing in that cave. It was really starting to piss Barrelroller off and he quickly found out that he was being watching, not by the Decepticons but by humans. They seemed to be following him around in cars and helicopters whenever he was on foot, which meant he had to fly a lot or hover in the air above the planet. After taking a short refuel and recharge, the jet went out to search the world again for any trace of energon he could find. Again, he didn’t see why Optimus chose this planet to make a base on.

The triple-changer was starting to grow weary of searching when an energon signature popped up on his HUD. It wasn’t a spark signature, but it was energon and that made Barrelroller a little happier that this planet wasn’t a completely fail in his books. With him still not finding the Autobots, the jet made his own call and followed the signal into an area of the northwestern hemisphere in a continent called North America. The signature was coming from a long mountain range in the middle of it and it seemed to be littered with caves. He had never found energon in mountains before, but maybe the ground had formed into a mountain over time and the energon got stuck there.

Barrelroller landed on the little lip of rock before there was an opening to a large cave in the side of a mountain. He could see drills and mining tools around the mouth, meaning that the Decepticons had either left their stuff here on accident, or the mine was still active. Of course, the triple-changer took his chance and made a quick sprint for the opening of the cave before going in deeper once seeing the coast was clear. The scientist chuckled to himself, the walls off the cave echoing his deep voice as he search around for any crystals or ore that might be lingering in stone around him. He took out his energon scanner and quickly scanned over the walls to see that there was tiny fragments of energon imbedded in the surrounding stone.

“Well what to do we have here?” he asked himself, smiling down at the readout on his arm scanner and continued walking in further as he tried to find one of the main opening in the tunnel systems. He chuckled at himself as he could see Vosians flinching and giving him looks of confusion to why he, a flier and an honored scientist as himself, would be digging in the dirt for energon crystals. He didn’t mind the dirt and mud, as long as he could rinse it off afterwards. Soon enough, he reached a room inside of the massive cave system that was covered in large energon crystals, some mined and some just sitting there to be mined. “Jackpot.” the mech announced, smiling.

Immediately, the mech from Vos went into chemist mode and started scanning the energon around him to started getting general reading from what conditions this mine had been under before the Decepticons started mining it. He went over to one of the larger crystal cluster and scanned over it, getting a readout full of results:

_Energon Status: positive for processing and refining_

_Grade: 1.56475_

_Uses: medical sedatives, medical antiviruses, recovery fuel rations, base for engex, Autobot rations, etc._

_Surrounding Rock Composition: Calcium, Oxygen, Sulfur, Magnesium Carbonate, Silica, Sodium, Chlorine_

_High Level of Carbon: Neutral_

_[SAVED TO DATALOG]_

Barrelroller smiled at the readout and transformed his servo in his sword blade to start cutting the energon crystal up into smaller pieces so that he could store some of it in his subspace for when he finally found a place to set up a lab. He could finally start processing the crystals and doing tests on them properly and not just scanning and collecting them. This was the boring part and the triple-changer didn’t like the planet he was currently on so far, so there were a lot of things other than him just being tired and completely done with Earth making his mind start to fizzle a bit.

After cutting off a few chucks of the crystal cluster, the triple-changer’s wings twitch and he stopped moving. He placed the crystal he was currently holding in his almost full subspace and looked around quickly, having the feeling that someone was watching him. Keeping his blade out, he scanned his optics around the room and quickly transformed his other servo into a blaster to shoot at a bunch of rocks across the open room. To most mechs, that would have seen crazy, but Barrelroller knew what he was shooting at.

The mount of rocks exploded and the staking femme dodged out from the mount beforehand. She regained her footing before looking up and studying the mech in front of her. The triple-changer was as tall as Megatron, maybe taller by a few inches at least and his plating was navy-blue with dark grey accents. He had two pairs of wings, one of on his shoulder line and the other under the first pair. He couldn’t remember any Autobots having blue optics, so she marked the mech off as being an Autobots, which would mean Megatron would probably want him dead. “I didn’t know the Autobots had flyers in their ranks, or did you just defect from the Decepticons because you felt cocky?” she teased, smiling a little crooked.

“I was never a Decepticon and I never will be.” Barrelroller answered back and pointed his blaster at the spider bot as she started to try and circle him. “I presume you are Airachnid then. There was one warrior in the Autobot Femme Ops that would never shut up about you. Frankly, I think I would be doing both her and all of seeker kind a favor if I just killed you off right now.”

“Seeker kind?” she questioned before she started chuckling darkly. “Oh, you mean my work as a, what did you Vosians call us, S-hunter, was it? Let me tell you, it was a very high end business back in the day. The only part I didn’t like was all the chirping and squeaking they made when they were scared or in terror. It got very annoying very fast, but fortunately, I was able to shut them up with a quick stab to the voice box!”

A blaster shot whizzed by her helm as she moved to the side before the now very enraged triple-changer tried to shoot her helm off. She activated her spider mode and scaled up the wall as the mech watched her. She could see the fury in his optics, which meant this was going to be a good fight. If she was lucky enough, the supposed Autobot wouldn’t call in for back up and she could take it easy on him since he newly welded leg was still bothering her. The mech started shooting at her again, meaning she had to move every time he re-aimed.

“You killed innocent seekers, you glitch!” Barrelroller shouted, quickly aiming his gun to where the spider bot would move next. The shot hit one of her eight support legs and made her lose her footing on the wall, dangling her from a ledge. “Come down here and fight, or are all you hunters as cowardly as they say?”

The black and purple femme looked down at the mech with anger and rage before launching herself at him. She yelled incoherently, but it stopped when the mech caught her around the neck and held her up in the air with the servo that transformed from his sword blade. Barrelroller didn’t say anything as she started to try and pull herself away from the mech’s grip. He wasn’t choking her, but Airachnid couldn’t seem to break his grip and her spider legs couldn’t reach the mech’s frame from the angle he was holding her up. “Let me go!” she screamed, trying to maneuver her legs to strike the mech’s arm plating.

“No thank you.” Barrelroller answered back as he quickly brought the femme down into the ground and made the stone underneath them splinter off. Airachnid groaned as she felt some plating on her back shatter from the force of being thrown into a stone floor. She looked up at the triple-changer to see he was very calm, a small smile and very neutral about his internal rage. She started to struggle against the mech’s grip until his servo squeezed and she gasped a bit, stopping her movement as she tried to get some air into her systems. “I much rather keep you in optic view.”

“You seem… to know a lot… about me.” the femme got up in between gasps. “Do I have the… pleasure of knowing who… you are?”

“No, you don’t. But knowing you, you’ll probably find out at some point.” the triple-changer answered back, looking up at the passage way back into the tunnel systems. The calm small smile on his face slowly molded into a large smirk when an idea popped into his processor. “You know what? I think we should continue this outside, don’t you?”

The spider femme’s face seemed to pale as she heard thrusters and started to wonder what the heck she had gotten herself into.

✢✢✢✢✢✢

“PRIME!”

Rafael and Jack looked up from their video game to see Agent Fowler make his way down the elevator from the top of the missile silo that was Autobot Outpost One. Bumblebee was right behind the two boys, watching the racecars on the TV to see who would win. In his opinion, he wanted Raf to win instead of Jack, but he guessed that if Fowler was here, then he might be going out on a mission. Miko and Bulkhead were out at a truck rally, so that only left himself, Arcee, Ratchet and Optimus at base currently, but the Prime could always call in Bulk is needed.

Ratchet looked up from the terminal and groaned a bit, knowing that the darker skinned human would start yelling again if he didn’t speak with Optimus soon. The medic hoped that this was nothing major and that Agent Fowler had just come to inform the Prime about something his overseers need to get throw. But with their last few strings of the man being here, Ratchet kept it in the back of his processor to have the medbay ready if they had to go out on a mission. Their current energon levels were at a good spot right now, so if they were lucky, he wouldn’t need to perform any major line reconnections.

“Optimus is here, Agent Fowler. If you would be so kind as to not yell every time you came in, then this would be a more pleasant experience for all of us.” the medic scolded, glaring at the human on the catwalk in front of him.

As if on cue, Optimus walked into the main foyer of the base and walked over to right behind Ratchet was standing. The orange and white medic had commed him that the human agent was here and to come out of his berthroom to talk to him. Most of his work was in there, and when the Prime wasn’t fighting Megatron, he was mostly reading or going out on drives to clear his helm. That’s as much as a Prime could do in the middle of the war, since there wasn’t a senate to help run, or anything else really. “Agent Fowler, what do you acquire of me?”

“There’s two bots fighting in the middle of a plain in Colorado and it’s right by a town, meaning that I need you to go get them to stop before your species gets exposed.” the dark skinned man stated, sending a link of footage to the terminal screen for the Autobots to watch. “It seems like one of your old enemies has resurfaced from working with the cons.”

Jack and Rafael walked over on the lower platform to watch footage from a government drone catching two cybertronians fighting in the middle of a field, one much bigger than the other. The camera didn’t have a good resolution, but Fowler froze the footage and zoomed in on the two bots when they were in clear view. One of the bots, blue and grey was defending itself from the other, black and purple, as the other’s extra appendages were trying to strike him in the chestplates. Arcee, who had walked from across the room to watch, glared at the frozen image and barred her denta together. “Airachnid.” she grounded out.

:: _Wait, if that’s Airachnid, then who is she fighting?_ :: Bee whirled in question, staring and pointing at the other bot that was unidentified. :: _I don’t remember seeing a Decepticon like that before._ ::

“We are not certain that the other cybertronian is a Decepticon.” Optimus commented, a small spark of hope in his spark that his message reached out to more Autobots around the universe than he originally thought. “Just like Wheeljack, we must be careful with what we are presented with. Although it was uncommon, there were some Autobots who had flight frames.”

“Yes, but the likelihood of any of them surviving the Exodus?” Ratchet asked the Prime. “You saw the census. None of the flight frames in the Autobot Army made it onto any of the evacuation ships or out of Cybertron’s atmosphere without getting shot at by Decepticon forces. Since there is no clear sight that they are an Autobot, we must assume that they are a Decepticon and take extreme caution.”

:: _Man, I didn’t know that Ratchet is instantly the carrier of all of us._ :: the scout buzzed.

“Nah, I’ve always seen him as more of a grumpy uncle of sorts.” Raf commented back, laughing a bit as Ratchet gave a distinguished huff at that, trying to ignore how offended the two made him.

“Anyways, you guys should get going before those two destroy something and people start to notice.” Fowler continued as he pointed to the live footage again. “I don’t really want the government on my tail just because I let two bots have an all-out brawl in the middle of Colorado.”

Optimus nodded and looked at Arcee and Bumblebee. “I have faith in you, Arcee, to not let your aggression towards Airachnid to get in the way of this mission. I will also be sending Bumblebee with you as support, in case my assumption was wrong and the other cybertronian present is indeed a Decepticon. If you need further assistance, I will comm Bulkhead to come and meet you at your location.”

“Of course.” Arcee responded as Ratchet received the location of the fight from Fowler and punched the coordinates in the groundbridge before activating it. The two-wheeler transformed and sped off through the green vortex, followed by the yellow and black sport car as they went off to the location in Colorado. When they got there, unfortunately, the fight seemed to be over for the most part, since the two bots were nowhere in sight. Arcee scanned the area as she transformed, surprised to see that they both had vanished.

That was until the aforementioned spider con went flying overhead before crashing a few feet in front of them. Bumblebee and Arcee jumped back, defense systems shooting online and their weapons transformed quickly from their servos as the femme slowly got up. Airachnid didn’t look like she was having one of her better days, since her plating was dented and split open in some places. The femme looked up and spotted the two Autobots in front of her, now feeling like this was about the time to get out of here. “Well, I guess I’m going to take my leave now.”

Confusing the two Autobots to of what just happened here, the mech Airachnid had been fighting had dropped down from the air above them, cratering the ground underneath and transforming both servos into his sword blades. He walked over towards the spider techno-organic as she started scrambling away. “Airachnid, you are making this too easy. Stop holding back already.” he mused in what to Bee sounded like a “British” accent that some actors he saw in some movies used.

.:Soundwave, I need a groundbridge now!:. she yelled into her comm, earning the sound of the vortex forming behind her. She made her run for it, striking on of her less injured legs at the mech’s ankle joint to stall him before sprinting off into the groundbridge before the triple-changer caught up with her. She’d rather face Megatron’s wrath rather than getting killed by the mech any day. The groundbridge closed right in front of the navy-blue mech’s face as he tried to grab her back, dipping down too far and crashing into the ground.

After a while of groaning, Barrelroller lifted him helm up from the dirt and stood up, dusting the soil off of his plating as much as he could before more of it could get inside of his plating. He was this close to getting her and he felt a little disappointed afterwards. That glitch had caused a lot of seekers some serious pain and not that Barrelroller was jailer, judge and executioner, but no one else was going to do it. He checked his wings quickly to make sure they weren’t damaged before turning around and getting a face full of blasters.

“Who the hell are you?” Arcee asked, charging up her blaster just in case the mech tried to open fire on them. She was basically holding her arm straight up since he seemed to be even taller than Optimus. The mech didn’t seem phase by having a blaster in his face.

“Barrelroller, Autobot scientist, chemist and energon expert.” the triple-changer announced clearly as he held his servos up a bit to show that he wasn’t going to stab or shoot them. “I could go on with the rest of my titles, but we might be here for the next few minutes. Now if you would be so kind to invite me back to base so I can speak with Optimus Prime because I have some good news and some bad news, and I am pretty sure he going to want to hear all of it.”


	4. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Barrelroller makes a lab.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoy!

“-and since I could not find any more flight frames from the Autobot Army around the universe, it is safe to say that none of them got off of Cybertron alive.”

Optimus Prime nodded as he listened to Barrelroller’s news. A part of him was glad to see the triple-changer, since with his fighting skills and expertise in energon might help them survive on Earth. But on the other hand, he was skeptical on how the triple-changer was able to get off of the planet by himself without being shot at. Maybe he left after the Exodus, but why he didn’t come meet up with the rest of the Autobots immediately was concerning to the Prime a small bit. He didn’t convey it though, but he was overall happy to see that one more of them were able to meet up on Earth. “Hmmm, thank you, Barrelroller. I’m glad to see that we fortunately have another Autobot with us to help fight the Decepticons for Earth.”

The triple-changer nodded as he continued looking around the foyer of the base. He frowned a bit, realizing that there was no room to go flying in here, meaning he would have to go out more frequently to alleviate some of his wing stress. He didn’t have Sky Call, like all seekers have, but if he couldn’t fly for a long time, his wings would start to hurt and cramp up. If he was lucky, he could get Ratchet’s help in building him a lab on the other side of the foyer and he wouldn’t have to be too far from the groundbridge to go for a fly. Everything was in his subspace, so all he need was a few desks, some separate computers to catalog his work and shelves for his experiments. “Yes, of course.” he muttered, walking over to the opposite side of the large room and starting to measure things out.

“No offense, Optimus, but you didn’t see what we saw.” Arcee mused, still replaying the scene in her processor. “Airachnid looked scrapped. Plating torn of its hinges and wounds everywhere, but she looked scared to death.”

“That is because she was.” Barrelroller commented as he started writing down some notes on an empty datapad he took out of his subspace. “She needed to pay for her crimes and I decided to do as much. She and I have much more history than you would believe.”

“What?” the two-wheeler questioned. “Did she kill your partner, too?”

“No, but she did play a part in making seekers an endangered sub race of cybertronian.” the triple-changer answered back, finishing his notes and storing the pad back in his subspace. “As part of Vosian Council, I was only doing my job of apprehending her and making her face justice. There are a lot of S-hunters still out there and I plan on fixing that problem sooner than later.”

:: _S-hunters?_ :: Bumblebee whirled as he tilted his helm in confusion. He had never heard that term before. :: _What are S-hunters?_ ::

Barrelroller looked up as his brushed his servos off against each other and spotted two of the humans that inhabited this planet on the catwalk behind the other Autobots. With a quick visual scan, he could see that they were not mature enough to overhear what S-hunters were and in any other case, the scout was still an adolescent so he decided against telling them for now. He remembered that Bumblebee especially shouldn’t hear that information because of his incident with his voice box. He didn’t want to trigger any unwanted memories for the young scout, knowing that Ratchet and Optimus would disapprove of him sharing such knowledge. “…nothing important, Bumblebee.” he responded eventually.

The scout gave the triple-changer a weird look before turning to Arcee, who just shrugged her shoulders in response, not knowing either. Of course, Bee thought nothing of it at the moment and walked over to go watch Jack and Raf play video games while the femme warrior went off to go to the training room and punch a few things. The triple-changer was left with the Prime and the medic, along with the two other humans in the room. Barrelroller huffed a bit and started to empty stuff out of his subspace for him to set up a lab with. Most of them were boxes with limited dimensional space in them, which were things he got back in Vos before the war. They were good for moving things and he only knew a few mechs back on Cybertron who had this tech around the same time he did.

An hour went by and the energon chemist had finally set up his portal lab. He had blast walls and doors around it in case something he made had a negative reaction and he didn’t blow up the entire base during it. He had a main terminal and all his chemistry equipment set up along with his energon samples from Earth and other planets. He had different chemical compounds on the shelves and counters, as well as a shelfing case dedicated to all his datapads, full and empty ones. After finishing his lab, he deleted the one he used to take measurements and placed the empty pad with his others on the top shelf. Everything was clean and sterile, just how the scientist liked it, and the words from his old lab professor rang in his helm. “ _Every scientist must be able to work in a clean, sterile environment. Even if it means that you have to carry a lab around with you at all time._ ”

Arcee walked back in from the training room to see that a lab had magically appeared in the foyer in the time that she was gone. Barrelroller was outside of it, currently setting a pin code for his keypad lock, and his wings were flapping a bit. The flier was happy with his work, even though he still had to get his personal items in his berthroom, but he was honestly thinking of just setting up a separate room in his lab to sleep in so he wouldn’t be far from it. Optimus had left to go on a drive, so he would have to wait and ask when the Prime got back. “You work fast.” she commented, walking over.

“Thank you.” he replied, unplugging the coder from the keypad and testing the lock once. The blast doors slid open and closed a few seconds afterwards. He smiled, wings flapping again, before he stowed the coder in his subspace to put away later. “I would rather get straight to work instead of having to wait a couple of days. That is why I carry my lab around with me in dimensional space boxes. Much easier to set up shop when you have shop on you at all times.”

“Right.” the two-wheeler answered back, surprised that he had gotten the portable lab up so quickly. She wondered if the triple-changer had did this a lot when traveling through the universe. Of course, she had never heard of Barrelroller until now, but Ratchet seemed to vaguely know who he was. Arcee walked away after a while of watching Barrelroller finished clasping the walls together and walked over to watch Raf and Jack, just as Bee was.

Soon enough, the sound of a huge all-terrain vehicle came speeding in through the road entrance and the car skidded to a stop inside the main foyer. The passenger side door opened and a teenage girl came popping out before the vehicle transformed into the missing Autobot that Barrelroller hadn’t met yet. Miko, of course, was screaming and yelling at the top of her lungs about the truck rally she just came back from as Barrelroller officially got his lab set up. “Man, you guys missed it! You should have seen the trucks jumping over those dirt hills!”

“That was nothing, Miko.” the dark green all-terrain truck pointed out. “You should have seen the Wreckers back in the day and they would do all these crazy stunts and were killing cons at the same time!”

Barrelroller glared a bit, not out of anger, but just in annoyance. None of the organics present were old enough to be involved in this war. They were at risk of getting seriously injured, yet Optimus allows them to stay here? Maybe it’s just his seeker lineage making him overprotective of adolescents again, but his opinion on pulling children, as human sparklings are called after a certain age, into a planetary war was that they shouldn’t be. He had seen too many young bots get injured from inexperience and lack of training for his processor to change his perspective on the matter. Bumblebee was one example that was very lucky to have survived what he went through at such a young age, but the triple-changer knew the scout could handle himself in a fight.

“That is all very amusing and all, but does anyone know when Optimus is getting back?” the jet called out, startling the new comers. “I wanted to ask him if I could move a berth into a room in the lab and recharge here instead of having to move back and forth.”

There was a large gasp before the teenage girl came running down the catwalk stairs and charged towards the jet, bombarding him with a bunch of questions. Barrelroller turned off his audio receptors for a moment before he watched the girl closely. She reminded him of Skywarp, surprisingly. Her over exaggerated optimism and excitement made the triple-changer think of the seeker and smiled a bit unconsciously. She kept rattling off unimportant questions like the youngest of the trine would whenever he met someone new or was just interested about something. He hoped that they were okay though, since he saw him leave Cybertron with Thundercracker and Starscream.

…Starscream. The triple-changer’s expression saddened and he fled the main foyer, punching in the code into the lab keypad and entering without a word to anyone else. It wasn’t Miko’s fault he left like that, but his optics started to tear up and he didn’t need anyone seeing him shed a tear.


	5. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Starscream finds out Barrelroller's alive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoy!

Starscream didn’t believe his audial receptors the first time he heard it. He thought this was just some trick his processor was playing on him after so many vorns of longing and hoping. But no, apparently Primus decided to change fate for him and decided to give him a second chance.

Barrelroller was alive.

He had heard it when he was in the medbay, chatting with the resident medic and his assistant when Airachnid came storming in like she had just had some sour energon. The femme was screaming and growling about the fight with the mystery opponent that had showed up in the mines near one of the many mountain ranges on this planet. She had already strangled a vehicon on the way her, but she didn’t look much better herself. Half of her extra legs were bend out of shape and her armor plating looked like it was going to fall off right there and then as she was walking into the medical center. The spider con had no doubt been yelled at by their lord and master, but she was even more pissed than usual.

“That blasted mech! The next time I find him, I am going to tear his wings off his frame!” she screamed as long as her glitching voice box would allow as she staggered into the main bay area. “I swear to Primus he is going to die and I am going to hang his helm on a wall as a trophy!”

The seeker flinched a bit after hearing the words “wings” and “trophy” in the same monologue, but most importantly that the mech she fought had wings on the outside of his frame. Was it a new seeker? Of course, there were not many other seekers out roaming the galaxy from his knowledge since most of them had died before the Exodus on Cybertron. Starscream knew he was probably the last seeker alive, which was a problem all in itself, but the only possibility of a mech having wings on their frame was if they had seeker heritage.

Knockout seemed to beat Starscream to it when starting to sass back at the femme when he stepped forward to actually do his job and examined her. “Whoever this mech was sure seemed to have something against you. Are you going to stop glitching about your loss so I can actually fix you? You’re literally falling apart and I don’t think anyone wants to see your insides.”

The spider Decepticon gritted her denta together as she held in screaming at the mech so he could do his job. The less time she spent here the better, since she knew Megatron would come looking for her after Knockout was done. The warlord had already unleashed his anger at the femme after she returned onboard via the groundbridge, but she could tell that the mighty leader of the Decepticons was probably going to do something else to make her know how much he screwed up. “Just hurry up! I have more important things than letting a stupid grounder like you mock me for falling to efficiently fight a triple-changer!”

A triple-changer, huh? The seeker turned around as he continued the sip the cube of jet fuel in his servo, listening in on the medic’s conversation with Airachnid. Of course, a triple-changer was normally made if they were cold-constructed to have two alt forms or if a flier and a grounder got very, _very_ lucky when trying to produce a sparkling. With the added information of having wings meant that a seeker would have had to have mated with a grounder, but that was impossible since no seeker mech would ever date a grounder out of pride. Unless…

Starscream stopped himself for diving that deep into his thoughts since he knew it was pointless. He was in charge of the entire hacking report of the Autobot census and knew that there was no way in the name of Primus was it was possible. He looked down at his energon as his spark sunk a little in his chest, wishing he could be wrong and that the mech he wanted was still here and could just come and sweep him off his pedes. They could fly away and never look back in this stupid war, but he was too far into this war for him to escape. He clenched his servo around the cube, knowing that Megatron would only hunt him down if he tried to leave. The seeker was trapped no matter what and tried to ignore the rest of the conversation, but found it hard as the two behind him went on.

“A triple-changer?” Knockout replied skeptically, speaking the SIC’s question out loud. “Well he must have been a Decepticon, right? I don’t remember any fliers that escaped the Exodus not being in the Decepticons ranks.”

“The fragging mech was an Autobot, of all things!” the femme continued, jerking her arms as she talked and making it very hard for the cherry red mech to actually do his work. “And to add on top of that, he didn’t even give me a chance! He was as tall as Megatron and apparently could fight like he was a part of the Elite Guard! He trampled me, and our gracious lord still is going to give me a punishment for that?! He ripped off half of my legs when he flew me into the ground and those stupid thruster pedes of his burned off some of my wiring! And that little smirk, he was toying with me the entire time!”

A cube of energon smashed on the ground in front of Airachnid and Knockout and the two of them snapped their attention forward to see that Starscream had been listening to them and his evening rations had slipped from his servo. The seeker was frozen, staring in shock as he stared at the spider con and replied her words in her helm. He was only reigned back from his thoughts when Breakdown shook him lightly to snap him out of it. “Starscream, are you alright?” he asked, worried for the smaller mech.

Starscream didn’t say anything, but he did run out of the medbay and started to make his way down the hallways. He didn’t really know where he was going, but his legs were telling him to move somewhere far enough where he was safe and alone. After navigating down five corridors, the seeker almost collapsed on the floor as his knee joint gave out from the amount of disbelief he was in. He dug his clawed digits into the wall to support him as he covered his mouth with the other servo. The seeker didn’t know if he was hyperventilating or starting to cry, but it was somewhere in between the two. His wings and frame began to shake as his optics started to tear up with coolant.

It had to be him. It had to Barrelroller. There was no way that wasn’t him. He was a triple-changer with wings on the outside of his frame and he knew how to fight like a trained warrior because he taught himself to. He had thrusters in his pedes and he was a foot taller than Megatron. Of course he wouldn’t have given Airachnid a change if she attacked him and with everything else she described, down to that little smirk he had when he being slightly cocky, it had to be Barrelroller. The mech was alive and he was on Earth!

The seeker was finally sobbing into his servo as his tears started to trail down his face in waterfalls. He was whimpering and crying against his servo, trying had to block out the sound as he completely crumbled with joy and happiness. There was a brief moment were Starscream was happy and smiling for once as he was relieved to hear that the triple-changer was alive, but then some of the memories he forced himself to forget started to come back into his mind and he remembered why he wasn’t with Barrelroller right now. He remembered the things he said the last time he saw him.

He regretted many things that he did, but he could regret something more than how he treated Barrelroller during the war. He treated the mech like scrap and was trying to prove to Megatron that he was worthy of being a Decepticon. He remembered how he discarded the triple-changer like he didn’t matter and he wasn’t important in his life anymore. Starscream then remembered the night that Barrelroller officially cut off all ties with him and he started crying more in sadness. His wings dipped down to as low as they could fall on his back, his shaking frame trembling harder with his crying.

He remembered how he told Barrelroller that he didn’t need him anymore. He told him that he had Megatron and that he would never get hurt. The seeker remembered how he was angry and upset that Barrelroller wouldn’t come with him, and that he refused to be with him during the war. He remembered all the times that the triple-changer had told him that Megatron would hurt him and more ways than one and how he didn’t listen. He remembered how Barrelroller never hit him, or cursed at him, or yelled at him, but he gave all that up for Megatron. He threw away everything he had in his life and he can’t get it back now.

Barrelroller would never forgive him.

After a while, the SIC shakily stood up from his knelt position on the floor and slowly walked towards his habsuite. He didn’t know how he knew it was the direction he was walking, but he ended up there after five minutes and sloppily pressed the code in. The door slid open and it closed behind the weary seeker. He looked around his room to only see how bland it was without something else with him. Starscream sighed heavily, holding in the urge to start sobbing again as he walked over to his berth and sat down on it.

There was a drawer he hadn’t opened in a long time, but tonight he finally opened it again. He took the key out from his subspace and turned it in the lock to open the drawer. He pulled it open and took out the box sitting in it. He opened the lid very gently and laid the box down in his lap. It was a box full of gems, all different colors and sizes. They weren’t made into jewelry or any type of wear, but there were all there. They were from Barrelroller as a gift and this was the one he had most dear to his spark. He chuckled as he remember the late day-cycle that he received this:

_The door to their shared apartment suite opened and shut as quiet footsteps sounded from the entry hallway of the house. The seeker was on the couch, writing up some of the reports he didn’t finish at the military base today but stopped to listen to the other mech in the room try to be sneaky and surprise him. Starscream chuckled to himself as he pretended to continue his paperwork before a pair of large servos covered his optics from behind._

_“Guess who?” the deep warm voice from behind the seeker asked, thumbs gently massaging the mech’s temples and letting the stronger EM field take over his and engulf it with warmth._

_“Hmm… Alpha Trion?” Starscream guessed poorly as he folded his legs in front of him while he patiently waited for the other bigger mech’s reply. The two servos covering the seeker’s optics were removed and he was suddenly being attacked by kisses from the triple-changer behind him. He scooted over on the couch as the bigger mech came around and smothered his partner in kisses while placing him in his lap. The seeker didn’t open his optics until the last kiss was over with, which was the longest, but it was warm and heavenly._

_“Seen when do I have beard plating, sweetspark?” Barrelroller asked, planting another kiss on the seeker’s cheek before chuckling a bit as his partner pouted. “I know you were joking, but where is the fun in that when you don’t make a slight joke out of it?”_

_Starscream smiled lazily, wrapping his arms around the triple-changer’s neck cables and nuzzling his face a bit. “I guess there wouldn’t be any, but don’t deny that you would look lovey in a beard.”_

_“I suppose, but that is not what tonight is about, Starscream.” the larger jet replied, talking a metal box out of his subspace and holding it for his partner to take. The seeker let go of the mech’s neck and took the box, shaking it a bit before he looked back at his partner in shock. “I do hope you like it, Starscream.”_

_The smaller mech didn’t waste any time opening the box and examining the contents inside. There were red, blue, yellow, purple, white, black, any color he could imagine and it was in that box. Gems, all cut with precision and made to look like that were fit for a lord of the upper castes. There were maybe thirty to fourth of them in the box and he looked back up at Barrelroller to only see that warm smile on his face. “How… How did you afford this, Barrelroller? I thought I told you that I don’t need you to spend your shanix on me. Your affection is enough, sweetspark.”_

_“When you work in a lab were mechs are cutting up rocks all day, they are bound to stumble upon some gems at some point or another.” the triple-changer replied, rubbing the seeker’s back gently to reassure him. “I told the other scientists that if they found a gem, that they were to bring it to me. I have been saving these up for a while and since in two cycles is your spark creation day, I thought I would give these to you now. I hope you enjoy the gift, Starscream. You are the love of my life and my prince, and a prince deserves such jewels and treasures.”_

_Starscream as at a loss for words. He closed the box and put it aside on the couch behind him before hugging the mech in front of him tightly. He knew that Barrelroller was a kind mech and was very generous when it came to gifts, but this was a little too much for the seeker. “Sweetspark, don’t do this for me.” he replied, starting to tear up a bit. “I love you so much, but you don’t need to get me this nice of a present. I don’t deserve it. I’m not that good of a mech for this.”_

_“Yes you are.” Barrelroller replied, kissing the mech on the lipplates as he rubbed the seeker’s wings. He slowly parted their frames again as he kissed the seeker’s forehelm. “You are a god in my optics, Starscream. You are a beautiful and intelligent mech with such grace and how you cause so much awe as you fly. I am lucky to be courting you, my dear seeker. I will never thinking differently.”_

Starscream closed the box and put it back into the drawer of his berth side table. He didn’t realized when he had started crying again, but he didn’t stop himself this time. He looked up at the ceiling of his room and started to sob more and more. He remembered all the gifts and nice things Barrelroller did for him and now, he could never get it back. The triple-changer would never forgive him after what he’s done and said. He gave up the love of his life for a mech who beat him every day and degraded him constantly. He was an idiot and he wished he wasn’t so stubborn.

“I’m sorry!” the seeker sobbed loudly up at the black ceiling. “You were right and I was wrong! I didn’t listen when I should of and I lost you! You were kind and loving and you loved me for who I was! I’m sorry I threw you away! I treated you like scrap and I miss you! I’m sorry! I’m sorry…”

Starscream collapsed onto his side as he hugged the pillow under his helm. He cried into it before he realized that his systems were shutting down into recharge from the amount of energy he had spent sobbing. He looked at the picture of his and his love on the table that he usually hid, but he put it out after yesterday’s events of crying over the fact that Barrelroller was dead. He felt himself start to slip, so he nuzzled his helm into the soft material and sighed. He pretended it was the triple-changer’s chestplates and he could still hear the rhythm of the sparkbeat he loved so much.

“I love you, Barrelroller… I hope you can forgive me for all the things I’ve said one day so that you might love me too…”


	6. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Barrelroller unpacks his subspace to find he brought a friend along with him from Cybertron.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoy!

It was surprising how many valuables Barrelroller kept from his days in the Golden Age, but most of them were really from the last few vorns of it. That was when he and Starscream were in a courtship with each other.

 It was the day-cycle after he had officially made residence at Autobot Outpost Omega One, but today was the day he was actually unpacking his more prized and treasured possessions. After Optimus Prime had returned from his drive, the triple-changer processed to ask the leader if he was allowed to move one of the spare berths from storage into a neighboring room of his lab, which he would install himself. The Prime didn’t voice any concern on the matter, so the jet went ahead and got to work building and moving everything into the room. He started early in the day-cycle so that no one would disturb him while working. The one thing he learned from the previous night’s experience was that human children never seem to shut up.

By midday, the berthroom was built into the back of the lab and up against the foyer wall and had the basics. There was a large berth, a table to the side of it and a desk to display personal items that he had kept with him, or anything he found necessary to show. The triple-changer started to unload his belongings from his subspace and placed them around the room. He placed his entry log on the berthside table and one picture of him and his creators along with it. He stared at the picture for a while, smiling at them before going to place other things around the room. Crystals that he had found while searching for energon, other datapads or any trinkets he kept from before the war ended up on his desk. He then took out a small golden box and placed it in the drawer of the table, closing and locking it with a key.

The last item he took out of his subspace was a tiny box about the size of his palm. He didn’t remember what was in the box and placed it down on his desk to examine it. It was a stasis box, meaning whatever he had put inside was alive and he didn’t remember taking anything organic with him. Barrelroller opened the box’s lid and turned off the stasis protocols as he took apart the detachable walls of the tiny device. He froze for a minute before smiling a bit as he carefully moved the tiny creature from off of the bottom part of the box. “Oh, I forgot I placed you in there. It’s good to know I have my best lab assistant still here with me.” he cooed gently.

In the palm of his servo was a recharging scraplet, curled up as it was quietly resting. The little thing was probably still under the effects of the stasis, so the little one wouldn’t be waking up quite yet. The little scraplet was named Violet, which was the designation that Barrelroller gave to the female parasite after he had taken the little one in. The triple-changer has had Violet in his possession from all the way back from his days in the Vosian Academy. One might think that it would be terrifying to have a scraplet for a pet, since it caused serious harm to cybertronians, but Barrelroller wouldn’t call Violet a pet. She was more of a friend to him than anything else.

Gently, the triple-changer placed the female scraplet down on a collection of piled up mesh cloth he had on his desk while he finished organizing his room some more. It took him another few minutes to finish up before he glanced over his shoulder to check of the recharging parasite. Slowly, she opened her bug-like optics and gave a small yawn while stretching out her little stick legs from their tucked in position. Violet stood up, struggling a little bit from the lack of use with her legs and wobbled on them before she fell over back onto the desktop. She started to squeak and beep rapidly, falling to get herself back up.

Barrelroller chuckled a bit and walked over, offering a servo to the little parasite for her to climb onto. “It is quite alright, Violet. It will take you a while to regain your strength in your legs. You can always ride on my shoulder in the meantime.”

The little scraplet looked up and started squeaking happily, scooting her way over to the giant mech’s servo so he could pick her up. Although most scraplets didn’t make verbal noises towards each other, Violet was a little different from the normal because of how Barrelroller took care of her. The scientist had found out that scraplets had the capacity to learn how to vocalize and comprehend certain things, just like cybertronians, but no one had tried to because of the danger of getting their plating bitten off. While in Barrelroller’s care, Violet learned some seeker chant, which was spoken in chirps and clicks from a flier’s voice box. She understood most other languages, but could only speak in the native tongue of seekers.

“ _Friend!_ ” she chirped happily as she nuzzled the scientist’s servos as they were cupped around her with the upmost care. Barrelroller was a good caretaker and Violet respected him. She was still a wild parasite, meaning that if agitated she will eat another cybertronian’s plating. The triple-changer treated her as such and didn’t try to train her to do anything she didn’t want to do, so she held a very high admiration for the mech and didn’t try to harm him in any way. Her large purple optics blinked a couple of times as she looked around carefully. Upset that Violet couldn’t find what she was looking for, she looked back at her friend with a sad look. “ _Have food?_ ”

“Food?” Barrelroller asked back, looking around his berthroom to see that he didn’t have any of his friend’s food with him. He hummed to himself as he thought a bit on how he would obtain some type of metal that his little parasite could eat and remembered that there was a whole barrel filled with nuts and bolts in the main foyer by the main terminal. “Ah, I know. There are some nuts and bolts made of iron and copper by the medbay if could give you. I don’t have any of your usual food, Violet, but that will do for now. Are you alright with that?”

The scraplet nodded her helm and started jumping up a bit to point to the large mech’s shoulder. Barrelroller got the message and placed the little parasite on his shoulder plating before walking out of the room and towards the door of his lab. Violet trilled happily and scooted over to nuzzle the triple-changer’s neck cables, absorbing the warmth his systems gave off. She looked around at the lab and was happy that nothing had changed about Barrelroller from the time she was placed in stasis. She liked the scientist and hopefully he was play some classical music for her while he’s work, which was what he usually did. “ _Music later, please?_ ”

The triple-changer chuckled, pressing in the pin code for his lab door for it to unlock and looking at the little female on his shoulder. “Of course, Violet. I have been listening to some Earth classical music and I think you would enjoy some of it.” Barrelroller walked out of his lab to find that only one of the humans were here, which was unusually with the knowledge that they all were at school at this time in the morning. The two-wheeler and the Wrecker were present in the foyer while Bumblebee probably being in the training room. Did something happen where the adolescent didn’t have to attend their learning halls?

Violet, seeing all these cybertronians around, did the initial thing and tried to hide in the jet’s collar plating. She hugged the mech’s neck cables tight enough that she wouldn’t fall, but didn’t hurt Barrelroller by doing so. It’s not that she was afraid of them, but more often than not cybertronians would shoot at her if she was out in the open without her friend with her. “ _No shoot!_ ” she cried out quietly, whimpering loud enough for only the triple-changer to hear.

“I know, little one.” the mech cooed back, gently rubbing a digit against the back of the scraplet’s helm. “We will make this errand quick so I can place you back in the lab. I will not let anyone harm you.”

Keeping to his words, Barrelroller quickly crossed the foyer and made his way to the terminal where he knew that barrel was. Of course being as big as he was, that meant that he drew attention when going places and caught everyone’s attention as he walked. The one who paid the most attention was Rafael, who looked up from his laptop when he heard the triple-changer walk across the main room. The young boy wondered what kind of science Barrelroller did since he was told that the newest part of the Autobot team was setting up a lab last night. The kid placed his laptop down on the table before getting up to walk over to where the giant mech was searching for something.

“Um… hello.” Raf called out once getting across the catwalk in front of the terminal. “You’re Barrelroller, right? The scientist?”

The navy-blue and dark grey jet looked up from the barrel he was about to pick up and glanced over at the terminal to see the youngest of the human children standing there nervously. “Yes, that is me. Did you have a question or concern that involves my knowledge?”

“Yes, actually.” Rafael replied, happy that the mech was easy to talk to and seemed to be in a better and happier mood than yesterday. “What kind of scientist are you? I suppose you do work with energon from what Ratchet told me yesterday?”

“Yes, I am an energon chemist.” Barrelroller replied, smiling and shifting the barrel closer to him so he could pick it up easier. “I also am an organic scientist, medical chemist, and I work with fauna and flora species on most planets, organic or not. I think you humans would call me a ‘jack of all trades’.”

The young boy laughed a bit and nodded, smiling up at the giant mech. Barrelroller nodded and reached down to pick up the barrel at his pedes before hefting it onto his shoulder. Rafael sighed quietly and watched, suddenly noticing that something was on the triple-changer’s neck cables and it look familiar. “Hey, Barrelroller? There’s something on your neck.”

“What? ...Oh!” he asked back, taking a moment before he realized that the young human meant Violet and placed the barrel down again. He gently pulled the little scraplet off of his neck, earning a whimper as he did so from her and held his hand out flat so that Raf could see the little parasite up closer. “This is Violet. She accompanied me here from Cybertron, but she is a bit shy so don’t be worried if she does not approach you at first.”

There was a high-pitched femme scream right next to Barrelroller and the flier winced as his sensitive audial were assaulted with the noise. He looked to his right to see that Bulkhead was the one who screamed and was pointing at his servo with a scared expression and the other servo already a blaster ready to shoot the little thing. “Scraplet!!”

Arcee flinched a bit as he looked over, doing the same as she transformed her servos into blasters. “Shoot it before the swarm shows up again!!” she yelled, charging her weapons and pointing them at Violet.

Barrelroller instantly cupped with servos over the little scraplet and held them close to his chestplates defensively as the anger he had the previous night seemed to return. The triple-changer growled and had his wings flare out behind him to make himself look bigger than he was and to tell the others to back off. “Wait a moment! What in the name of Primus do you think you are doing trying to shoot my scraplet?! Put your weapons away, you pieces of scrap! She is harmless! As long as you restrain yourselves from hurting her, she will cause no trouble! Calm yourselves this instant!”

The two bots backed down a bit after the flier was done ranting at them in pure rage, but didn’t completely trust the mech yet with the small scraplet in his servos. Arcee and Bulkhead kept their weapons out just in case something happened as they watched Barrelroller remove his servo that was covering the little parasite to check on her. The little purple-opticed scraplet was terrified, whimpering and squeaking into the triple-changer’s chestplates with two of her four legs hugging him. “ _Please no hurt! I a good femme! I didn’t bite! Please help me!_ ”

“Shhh, I know, Violet.” Barrelroller replied, gently nuzzling the top of the crying scraplet’s helm with his digit as he quietly clicked at her with words of comfort in seeker chant. “ _You are okay, Violet. You did no wrong. Some mechs and femmes do not understand that some scraplets are not fond of eating others. You are not in the wrong, little one._ ”

“ _Okay, Friend._ ” the little parasite replied, nuzzling back and chirping happily from the comfort. It took her a moment to calm down and return to a somewhat relaxed state before she looked over at the small human on the catwalk with curiosity. She wanted to meet this creature, but was scared that the cybertronians would shoot her if she tried. Barrelroller noticed she was looking over at Rafael, so he extended his servo out again to lower the little female scraplet over the railing of the catwalk. She looked back at her friend with worry. “ _It okay to make new friend?_ ”

“Of course, Violet.” the large jet replied, holding the scraplet at the young human’s height. He looked over at the boy and smiled warmly. “Now, Rafael. Violet is very nervous right now, but she would like to be friends with you. Scraplets are very wary of others, so the best way to handle her is to just hold our ser- _hand_ out, sorry. If she is okay with you, she will nuzzle you.”

The young boy nodded and cautiously held out his hand for the scraplet to inspect. After the last time the Autobots had to deal with the parasites, Raf was still a little scared of them. This scraplet seemed very calm though, so he pushed his fears aside to try and make an effort to be friends. “Hi um, Violet. My name is Rafael, but you can call me Raf. It’s okay. I won’t hurt you.”

The little scraplet looked up from behind her little stick legs, still scared that someone was going to shoot her out in the open like this. She looked at the small creature in front of her again and scooted forward to the end of Barrelroller’s digits as she examined the hand in front of her. The human’s demeanor was very nervous, just like hers. She chirped a bit, testing to see if the human understood her. “ _Do you want to be new friend, Raf?_ ”

“Um… I’m sorry. Your chirping isn’t like Bee’s.” the young boy answered back. “I can’t understand you.”

“She asked if you wanted to be her friend.” Barrelroller replied for Rafael, gently placing the scraplet down on the catwalk next to the young human.

“Oh! Yes, I can be your friend.” Rafael replied happily, still only keeping his hand out for the scraplet and not trying to touch her in any type of way that would make her uncomfortable. Suddenly, the little female parasite trilled happily and leaped forward to nuzzle the small human happily. Rafael laughed a bit and started to pet her helm gently, causing the little scraplet to chirp and squeak even more. The two stood there for a while as Arcee and Bulkhead finally put away their weapons and watched with a small bit of relief.

“Where’d you get her?” the two wheeler asked.

“She was in a lab as an experiment tester.” the triple-changer explained, getting a small handful of nuts and bolts for Violet to eat as she was spending some time with her new friend. “She was severely damaged and I took her back to my dorm room out of the goodness of my spark. I repaired her and she instantly decided to stick with me. I could not argue with her and Violet became my little lab assistant. I named her after her optic color so her designation was not complicated. My roommate wasn’t very happy about the fact that I brought her back to my dorm.”

There was a small glitched whirl as Barrelroller realized that Violet had eaten all the metal in his hand and the little nuts and bolts had disappeared from existence. The little parasite had “burped” and squeaked a bit as she was embarrassed for doing that out loud in front of everyone. “ _Excuse me_.” she clicked and rubbed her face with her two front legs.

“You are excused, Violet. It is quite alright.” the jet replied, nuzzling the top of the scraplet’s helm with his digits to make the little one feel less shocked and embarrassed about the situation. Barrelroller smiled, but felt his wings twitch behind him as the pressure and EM fields in the room drastically changed as Ratchet walked in from the medbay and saw Violet.

“Why is there another scraplet here and who’s idea was it to put it near the children?!!”


	7. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Starscream and Barrelroller finally see each other after a really long time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoy!

Starscream, relatively speaking, has had better days than the one he was currently having. Honesty, anything was better than sitting on his knees in the middle of a desert with his wrists and wings cuffed while he was trying to convince the Autobots to not murder him on sight.

The seeker was pissed, mostly over the fact that Airachnid had left him for scrap with the Autobots in the first place, but was also immensely nervous. He wasn’t on any bot’s “nice” list and it made him wonder why the Prime had chosen to believe him when all of his soldiers didn’t. What did the Prime have in mind? Was he really gonna give him a second chance? Starscream personally wouldn’t give himself a second chance, so what was the point? Of course, the Autobot moral code didn’t seem to involve killing prisoners after their usefulness was gone, so he supposed that he was just going to have to wait this one out.

He was left with Arcee while the others went off to find Airachnid and the Immobilizer after Starscream told Prime where the Harbinger was located. The two-wheeler had started pacing as her EM field started pulsing with rage and irritation, from what the seeker could feel along his wings, but he wasn’t sure if it was for Airachnid or the fact that Optimus denied her the chance to fight. She didn’t directly look at him to make sure he was still there, but did spare a few side glances his way after few times she paced in a circle. Starscream could tell Arcee was getting more and more frustrated the more time that the others were away.

 “…I’m not really so bad, you know.” he said out loud, fiddling with his claw-like digits. His voice sounded like he was overcharged, it slurred and mumbled. “Megatron; _he’s_ the evil one.”

“Tell it to someone who cares.” Arcee seethed back, snapping at the seeker and make him flinch involuntarily. She noticed the flinch, narrowing her optics for a moment and watching him. His body seemed to be limp almost, red optics staring intensely at the ground like he was going to murder it. The two of them were left in silence until her comm pinged and she turned away from him to answer it. _::Arcee here… What?! I don’t need help watching a prisoner!... Fine. How far out are you?::_

After that last statement, both Starscream and Arcee could hear the sounds of jet thrusters in the distance and gaining fast. At first, the seeker thought that they were vehicons out on a search party for him, but soon realized that there was only one jet engine incoming and the two-wheeler wasn’t pulling out her weapons. He looked at the incoming jet and blanched, his look of confusion dropping drastically into a look of fear and regret. It took a couple seconds, but soon the jet flew right in front of them and transformed before touching down on the ground before them.

Barrelroller. Starscream’s wings dropped as much as they could cuffed as he watched the triple-changer stand up from his crouched position. The navy-blue and dark grey plated mech towered over the both of them, even Prime by comparison and did a quick scan of surroundings. His blue optics stopped when they locked when they locked with the seeker’s and they both froze for a moment. The seeker could see the mech’s large wings twitch behind him as he seemed to be reading the smaller mech’s field before turning his gaze away to face Arcee, who seemed to be very upset or pissed. Or both. Starscream sighed and decided to ignore them as he watched his vision get more and more blurry.

“It’s funny. I’ve been her less time than you have, but he doesn’t trust you to watch one mech.” the navy-blue mech quipped, crossing his arms over his chestplates. “I don’t understand why I’m here either, so don’t get your cables in a twist. Optimus seemed to believe you had tried to murder him already.”

“I’d rather be fighting that eight-legged glitch than standing guard of a prisoner that could literally stab me in the back.” the blue femme replied, shooting an icy glare at the silver seeker on his knees over by the trailer. “Prime’s making a mistake. He’s more trouble than he’s worth. It’s a wonder why Megatron kept him around for this long.”

Barrelroller shifted his gaze to look at the smaller mech in question, realizing that his helm was down and his servos were clenched into fists. The seeker’s wings had rose since he had gotten there, which was slightly concerning, but the triple-changer wasn’t going to question why. He too had been asking himself the same question as Arcee had mentioned. Why did Megatron keep Starscream around for so long? The mech tried to back stab him every chance he got, so you would think he would have gotten rid of him by now. Was something else going on behind the scenes that the Autobots were missing?

The first thing that tipped Barrelroller off that the seeker wasn’t well was his attitude at the moment. The mech knew Starscream and this submissiveness that the little flier was showing off currently wasn’t normal. “How long has Starscream been sitting there like that with his helm down?” he asked Arcee, tilting his helm in curiously as he glanced at her.

The motorcycle leaned back to look around the towering mech, watching the downed Decepticon SIC for a moment before shrugging. “I don’t know. I haven’t really been paying attention. He’s been cuffed ever since we shoved him in Optimus’ trailer earlier. If anything, he’s probably scheming a way to get out of them. Why?”

Being a medical chemist, Barrelroller had to take a few courses in basic and advanced medical training and sciences. A few things to know about seekers as a subspecies was that their fields aren’t the strongest, which is why they use their wings to communicate emotion and sometimes messages between each other. Another thing to note was that seekers or cybertronians with exterior flying appendages were more susceptible to Sky Call than other fliers. As the triple-changer looked over the seeker, he took into account what Arcee said about him being stuffed into the back of a trailer to the past however long it took them to get here and started to realize a few things.

Starscream should have been affected by 1st degree Sky Call by now with his wings cuffed like that, but he wasn’t. The first degree systems of Sky Call was mania or jitteriness, immense field output of anxiety or nervousness, and constant “clicking”. “Clicking” was a grounder term for how seekers communicate, since most of the updated medical files didn’t know what Seeker Chant was or how to understand it. Starscream was showing none of those symptoms, but his current situation should had triggered it by now. His wings were cuffed and limiting his emotional output, he had been imprisoned in the back of a trailer for hours, and he was in a highly-stressful situation. A seeker of Starscream’s size should have been halfway to 2nd degree Sky Call if it wasn’t for the fact he wasn’t still confined in a small space.

The navy-blue colored triple-changer didn’t answer the two-wheeler behind him as he briskly walked over to kneel down in front of the seeker. He expanded his own field for a moment and tried to see if he could feel Starscream’s, being that triple-changers have one of the stronger EM fields of the cybertronian races as a whole. The small flier didn’t look up at him, like he had gone numb to any feeling or Starscream was simply ignoring his presence. It wouldn’t be a surprise to Barrelroller, but this was a little more serious. The little seeker’s field was small, shrunk against his frame and clenched there as if he was protecting himself from letting his emotions go, but it was starting to slip.

“That’s not good.” the mech muttered out loud as he took out his scanner from his subspace and switched its setting from mining to medical.

Arcee heard his mumbling and turned her attention to them, very confused on what Barrelroller was trying to do. “What’s not good? Something wrong with him?”

“Yes.” the triple-changer answered back, doing a quick scan over of the seeker’s frame. The scan started analyzing and took a couple of minutes to produce results. The mech’s scanner wasn’t designed to do in-depth medical scans, but could do a general run down of a mech or femme’s systems if needed for medical work. “Could be hypoenercemia…”

“Hypoener-what?” the femme asked over his shoulder, not understand the medical term he was using. “What are you talking about?”

“Hypoenercemia. Lack of energon in a mech or femme’s systems. Very deadly for seekers since they burn twice as much energon as grounders do.” Barrelroller replied, looking over at his forearm to read the results of the scan that had popped up:

_Spark pulse: 104 pulses per astrosec; irregular count_

_Spark Frequency: 30 hz per pulse_

_Core Temperature: Above normal_

_Behavior Readings: Abnormal_

_Energon Level: 35% and dropping._

_[Conclusion: Severe hypoenercemia and 1 st Degree Sky Call]_

Barrelroller smirked, chuckling to himself and gently taking a hold of the seeker’s nearly limp frame into his lap as he sat down. “Ha! I was right! Arcee, I need you to give me the access keycard to Starscream’s cuffs, now!”

“What? Why?” the two-wheeler immediately questioned. Barrelroller had only been at base for two weeks, so why should she trust him? “And I thought you were a scientist. How the heck to you know so much about medical science? I’m not giving you the keycard unless Optimus allows it. For all I know, you could be working for the cons! You haven’t been here for that long!”

Barrelroller’s engine roared a bit, growling in his chassis as he snapped his helm over at her. “Listen to me, Arcee and listen well! This mech, con or not, is going to die unless you give me that keycard! I need to clear out his Sky Call first before I can administer him any energon, so I need to un-cuff his wings! Don’t assume that I am your enemy just because I am trying to save someone’s life! What would Optimus or Ratchet do in this situation?!”

The triple-changer’s voice had become feral and his optics seemed to glow brighter as he yelled, wings flaring out in a defensive and protective manner. Arcee backed up a bit and noticed the overwhelming feeling of rage through the mech’s expanded EM field. As if on cue, the femme’s comm rang with Bumblebee on the other line. She listened to his message before digging the keycard out of her subspace, throwing it on the ground before the two mechs and turned her back to them. “…Bee needs my help. I’ll be back after I help him with the others… Don’t screw up.”

The triple-changer snatched up the card as Arcee transformed and drove off past the stone arch, heading towards where the other half of the Harbinger was supposed to be. Barrelroller watched for a couple seconds before turning his attention back to Starscream, whose optics seemed to be getting dimmer. The first thing he did was removing the cuffs from Starscream’s wings and getting the seeker to sit in his knees facing him. The little flier’s wings instantly sprang out and started twitching rapidly, which was normal for a seeker who had Sky Call. Carefully, Barrelroller lifted the seeker’s helm up with one digit under his chin so that they made optic contact.

“Starscream. Starscream, focus on me.” the larger jet snapped harshly, trying to get some more consciousness out of the mech. He snapped a couple times on the left side of the seeker’s helm to see if an auditory call would get a better response out of him. Like magic, Starscream’s optics brightened a bit and focused on the mech in front of him. Of course, he couldn’t clearly see who he was with, but like their accent. “Starscream, nod if you can hear and/or see me.”

The seeker nodded once and gently wrapped his cuffed servos around the larger mech’s wrist, the one of the servo that was holding up his helm. The grip was weak and loose, but it showed Barrelroller enough proof that Starscream was listening to him. “H…h..el…p.” he croaked out, voice box fritzing from the lack of energon.

“I know, Starscream. I need you to start moving your wings for more. Start circling them behind you and I’m going to generate some wind flow for you.” Barrelroller asked calmly as he started making large, slow flaps with his wings as if he was making a small breeze for the other mech. Starscream seemed to register the breeze as wind and his wings started to settle from their twitchiness. The seeker started to blink, the optical fluids glazed over his optics starting to dissolve as the breeze seemed to make him relax. Soon, the mech was gripping on tighter to the larger mech’s wrist and sighing.

The two of them sat there for a while with the small gusts of breeze and slowly, the small seeker was regaining consciousness. Of course with regaining consciousness, that meant part of his sight and processing systems came back online as well. Starscream took one look at Barrelroller and went completely rigid. Memories of the past come flowing back in his processor and he started to panic. When seekers panicked, they panic the hardest of them all. “B-Barrelroller!! N-No, no, please… I-I’m sorry!”

Pede collided with chassis and soon the two mechs with grappling with each other. Starscream had kicked the triple-changer in the chestplates after being confused about the statement he made and groaned. The seeker then tried to stand up and walk away, but Barrelroller feared the mech might hurt himself more now that he was conscious with severe hypoenercemia so he grabbed the smaller mech around the waist to pull him back down to the desert floor.

“Starscream! Stop it! You are going to hurt yourself!” the larger mech cried out and the seeker started to flail in his grasp, using his claw-like digits to scrape at the larger mech’s servos.

“No, please! I’m sorry! Let me go!” Starscream screamed in return, trying to elbow the other mech trying to pull him back. “I left you alone! I forgot about you like you told me to! Please don’t hurt me! Just let me go now!”

Barrelroller growled and tugged the seeker down into his lap, his strength must higher than the faltering seeker’s. He wrapped one arm around securely around Starscream’s waist and the other one around the smaller mech’s arms and chest. “Starscream, stop struggling! I am not going to kill you! If you keep struggling with his servos cuffed, you are going to pull something important and your systems will be too deprived of energon to do anything about it! Now, quit it and calm down!”

“No! Let me go!” Starscream growled and bit down on the larger jet’s arms, making Barrelroller yelp and wince a bit.

The larger mech was starting to have enough of this and pushed the smaller jet’s body onto the desert floor, making sure his arms wouldn’t move anymore and keeping both of his servos on his back. “Starscream, I swear to Primus! Stop moving! I will use a sedative! Do you want me to use that?!”

That seemed to shut the seeker up, the smaller mech falling silent under the larger mech’s servos. He stopped struggling and went limp on the ground, whimpering silently under his breath as he fearfully watched the mech over him give him a glare. After a few minutes of surrender, Barrelroller relaxed a bit and lifted some of the pressure off of Starscream’s back and wings and he let out a deep sigh. Starscream watched his expression change from mad to upset in a second and whimpered more. “P-Please…”

The triple-changer sat back on his aft and lifted the seeker up from the floor, placing him in his lap as they stared at each other for a moment before Starscream averted his optics. ‘What am I going to do with you, Starscream?’ the mech thought to himself, digging into his subspace and pulling out a cube of energon from it. He held it in front of the seeker’s face for him to lean forward and drink from, but of course the mech was being difficult and turned his helm to the side.

“Are you being serious with me, Starscream?” Barrelroller questioned, his anger coming back and making the seeker flinch. The triple-changer took notice and took a deep vent before gently tilting the smaller mech’s helm back to look at him. “Please, Starscream. You are under fueled and you need to drink some energon. Just one cube and then we’re done, okay?”

“…so you do still hate me…” Starscream muttered to himself, forcing his optics to look down at the cube in front of his face. He couldn’t look at Barrelroller, not after all the trouble he had caused. The triple-changer was trying to help him and he was so cowardly that he couldn’t even withstand to go through some proper help. When Barrelroller didn’t argue against his statement, his wings fell again and he started to shake, not from his thoughts but from the hypoenercemia. “…I’m such a screw-up… I ruined everyone I had and now I can’t even get help…”

“Starscream, stop thinking about that.” Barrelroller replied, sounding a lot calmer than he was before. He pushed the cube forward a bit more and gently stroked the side of the seeker’s arm. “Just drink the cube for me. Please. I’m trying to make sure you don’t die.”

The seeker stared at the cube for what seemed like forever before leaning forward and taking tiny sips from it. Soon, his hungry grew and his cuffed servos came up to hold onto the triple-changer’s wrist with a death grip as he tilted the cube back more with greed. Barrelroller winced a bit as the sharp digits pierced into his arm and dented in the metal plating. The cube was empty in seconds and Starscream’s energon levels went back to a more normal level of 77%. The mech released his digits from Barrelroller’s wrist and gently pushed the cube away. He stared at the mech for a moment as he put down the empty cube and looked down at his servos. “…I’m sorry…” he mumbled.

“I know you are, Starscream. I know you are.” Barrelroller replied, continuing to stroke the seeker’s arm. “I know you’re sorry. I can sense it in your field. But I guess this is what happens when you don’t listen to me when I’m trying to protect you... Megatron; did he do this?”

Starscream nodded sadly and gently placed his servos in his lap. “…I’ve missed you. Please… I’m sorry… I can’t do this anymore… He keeps hurting me and I don’t have a way out. I’m just his whipping boy and I don’t want to suffer though it anymore. Please… forgive me and let me come with you. I know I don’t deserve the second chance from you after everything I did, but please. I-I can’t get pounding into the floor anymore and have my wings bent! I should have listened to you! I’m such an idiot! I don’t deserve to-!”

Barrelroller held his large servo to the mech’s cheek and wiped away the coolant pouring from them. The seeker stopped mid-sentence and just stared at the triple-changer as his small field got enveloped by the larger jet’s overpowering one. His systems went numb and his erratic vents calmed slightly. “Stop talking like that. You’re not an idiot, Starscream, even if you do make stupid mistakes sometimes. Yes, you should have listened to me, but I have also hurt you. I left you there and shouted at you. I don’t want an apology from you and I won’t give you an apology from me.”

Suddenly, there was a beep and the cuffs around Starscream’s wrists snapped over. The seeker went wide-opticed at his wrists and pulled them up to his chestplates as his attention flickered to Barrelroller’s face for anything. “W-Why?” he asked quietly as he looked down at his servos. His chin was again lifted up by the triple-changer’s digit and he was forced to look at the larger mech’s calm face.

“Prove to me that you regret what you said. Prove to me that you are truly sorry.” Barrelroller responded, gently wiping away more tears of coolant from the seeker’s optics. “Make the right choice and don’t go back to _him_ , Starscream. Fly away and don’t go back to the Nemesis. This is your second chance from me. Now, go.”

A small glimmer of hope exploded in the seeker’s optics as he nodded, standing up on unstable legs and removing himself from the triple-changer’s lap. He looked down at his wrists and back at his wings before giving one more glance to Barrelroller. He understood what he needed to do and saw that his subspace had been filled with five more large cubes of energon. Starscream looked down at his pedes and transformed, hovering for a moment before taking off and flying away.

Barrelroller was left on the desert floor with Prime’s trailer beside him. He stood up and noticed that Ratchet had been trying to comm him. He leaned against the trailer and gave himself a small smile as Starscream flew away from his capturers. _::Barrelroller here, Ratchet. Unfortunately, we have a problem with our prisoner.::_


	8. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Barrelroller reflects on a few things.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoy!

The first thing Barrelroller expected to hear when he walked out from the groundbridge was “Where’s Starscream?” Unfortunately, he was met with a pissed off femme instead and his ultimate plan was to just ignore her the time being, which showed to be increasingly difficult the more time she yelled at him.

“You let him get away?!” Arcee spat at him as she slammed her servos down on the nearby workbench as she was talking to the triple-changer. “How could you have let him get away?! He was our prisoner! He could have given us information about Megatron’s next moves and where all of the Decepticon mines are! How could you just let him escape?!”

Of course, Barrelroller didn’t answer her since his processor was elsewhere. Currently, he was sitting on a medical berth while Ratchet welded and un-dented his plating from the scuffle he and Starscream had earlier. The triple-changer had been silent the entire time he had been back at base, being that everyone there already seemed to know what was going on the moment he came back. It was like a fat red arrow was pointing to the spot were Starscream should have been walking in behind him and everyone could see it besides him. The only thing he did bring back was Prime’s trailer.

“Come on, Arcee.” Jack piped up from the catwalk protruding over the medical bay area. “Everyone has their off-days. Even you do. There’s got to be a good explanation for why Barrelroller didn’t bring Starscream back… right?”

“Yeah right.” Bulkhead mocked back, chuckling to himself. “Screamer probably just got the jump on him. From what Arcee told us, he probably just faked the ‘hypo-whatever you call it’ just so he could escape.”

Barrelroller wasn’t even listening to their conversation anymore. His mind was too busy wondering if he made the right choice or not. He just gave Starscream the chance to redeem himself in the triple-changer’s optics with no knowledge if the seeker would actually listen to him this time. The words, “so you do still hate me” rang in his helm like a church bell ringing its tune over and over again. He felt guilty, the kind of guilt you get when you get mad and yell at someone, but then you realize that they had nothing to do with the reason you were upset in the first place. His mind then took him back to that day back on Cybertron when he and Starscream finally burnt their already broken bridge…

_Barrelroller hadn’t seen Starscream in megacycles but finally after a battle had just cleared out, he had found Starscream again amongst the rumble and in critical damage. Of course, he found a secrete cave in the middle of the Sea of Rust and hid there while both Autobot and Decepticon forces scavenged the remains of the battlefield. He repaired the seeker once hidden and sat to wait for the flier to wake up and face his past._

_It took a good few breems for the little flier to wake up and reboot his systems. Starscream groggily sat up, holding his helm and searching around the cave for some explanation for how he got here. “Where…?” he muttered to himself, trying to stand up._

_“I’m getting really tired of having to dig you out of the rubble of a battlefield.” Barrelroller’s voice echoed throughout the cave, aqua blue optics glaring through the darkness and making the seeker jump. “I didn’t know the Decepticon Army practiced kamikazes as a battle strategy.”_

_“Barrelroller?” the seeker asked as if he didn’t recognize the triple-changer’s voice instantly. The seeker’s optics went from wide with surprise to narrow in suspicion. “Wait. Are you here because you want me to join the Autobots again?”_

_“Other than saving your life?” Barrelroller mocked a question, standing up and waltzing over to tower over the small seeker in front of her. “No, not really. After you refuse to listen to any sort of reason I give you, why would I even begin to try and do that?” The triple-changer could see the hurt in Starscream’s face as the sarcasm in his tone stung the seeker’s audials._

_“You’re trying to persuade me away from the Decepticon cause, Barrelroller!” Starscream stated sternly back, crossing his arms over his chestplates. “I am doing good by Vos! I am showing the Senate that us seekers aren’t just… just these things to be hunted for sport! I don’t see how you can’t follow by that! You made the Anti-Seeker Hunter Plan with the Vosian government and now when the chance comes to attack the people who order our wings to be chopped off and sold, you just turn a blind optic to it?!”_

_“Starscream, the Seeker Hunters are the Decepticon Army!” the triple-changer stressed back, wings flaring out and denta baring as he spoke. “The mechs from Tarn and Kaon are all in the Decepticon Army! You aren’t fighting against them, you’re fighting with them! You are putting yourself in harm’s way and don’t even get me started about Megatron!”_

_“Megatron?!” the silver seeker squawked back. “What about Megatron?! He’s done nothing!”_

_“Oh really?” the larger mech replied with a fake surprise. “What about that slap mark on your cheek? Or the bent wing? Or the fractured optic? So none of those were Megatron? None of those were from him when you snuck off to Kaon in the middle of the lunar-cycle after I told you not to go back there?”_

_“I didn’t sneak off to Kaon in the middle of the lunar-cycle!” the smaller mech argued back, wings hitching and flaring out with rage and anger. He didn’t deny the remarks about him getting hurt._

_“Yes!” the triple-changer roared back and growled at the seeker with his rage bubbling out and over into his EM field, shrouding around Starscream. “Yes, you did! All three of you did! I had told you time and time again to not go to those riots or those gladiator matches and what did you do?! You went anyways! Was I not being a good courtmate by trying to protect you from harm?!”_

_“You were being a pain in my aft, that’s what you were being!” Starscream finally screamed back and lived up to his name. His wings hitched up and out, making him look bigger than he was and pushing his own anger and rage at the triple-changer. “You were blocking me from my goal as Air Commander to protect my city-state! Megatron never hurt me! He was supportive and helpful and he was trying to help me and the rest of the seekers protect themselves from people who wanted to murder us! He was there when you were too busy with the Council and too busy with the Senate! He cared more about me than you ever did!”_

_There was a shift in the air as Barrelroller’s optics relaxed from their narrowed and angered state to an eerily calm state. The words hung in the air for a tense moment before Barrelroller answered back in a hurt tone. “You think I don’t care about you? You don’t think about how long we’ve known each other than I don’t care about you and your wellbeing? Do you think I would have pulled you off of that battlefield to repair you if I didn’t care about you? Oh Primus, what has he done to you?”_

_“He hasn’t done anything!” Starscream protested, throwing his servos up in the air and baring his denta again. “In fact, he’s actually helped me! He’s been kind and gracious! He’s been supportive of my goals and aims to protect me and my seekers! He’s so amazed by my skills that he made me his second in command of the Decepticon Army! How can you not be at least a little bit supportive of your courtmate for me making this far by myself?!”_

_“Former courtmate.” Barrelroller commented as he dug something out of his subspace, a portable chronometer with a gold casing and a gold chain hanging from the small handle. His courtmate accessory, the one given to him by Starscream when they started courting each other._

_It was now time for Starscream to be in complete shock. The seeker’s wings dropped and his stared wide-opticed at the object, knowing what was about to happen, but failed to comprehend it at the time. His servo reached up as if he was going to snatch the chronometer, but clenched it with tears starting to form. He had just realized what he had said and was being to regret everything that had just happened. “Barrelroller… w-what…” he whimpered._

_The triple-changer threw the accessory on the ground in front of Starscream’s pedes and turned his back on the seeker. “If you like Megatron that much, go court him then. You clearly don’t need me anymore if he’s so supportive and gracious to you. Hopefully, he can do much better at being a good courtmate that keeps you warm and happy all the time and saves your aft. I must be such a disappointment to you, huh?”_

_Starscream’s face was covered in tears and his servos were clutching his chronometer when Barrelroller looked over his shoulder on more time before transforming and flying out of the cave. He didn’t regret his actions at the time, his mind too full of anger and rage and hurt to comprehend how much he hurt the seeker. The only thing he heard while leaving that cave was Starscream screaming with agony and pain. “Barrelroller!! No, please come back!! I’m sorry!!”_

_“Barrelroller!!”_

_“Barrelroller, please I’m sorry!!”_

.

.

.

“Barrelroller!”

The large jet’s helm shot up at the sound of his name being called. His wings were quivering a bit, showing his mood very clearly and his optics were flickering a bit. They were like a dying street light, changing in and out from their normal aqua blue to an amber orange and then back. It stopped after the mech seemed to regain his composure, his optics settling on blue and he looked behind him to see that Rafael was trying to get this attention. He sighed, looking around to see their guardians not around and Ratchet at the terminal computer.

 

“Yes, Rafael?” Barrelroller replied, arching a brow at the little boy as he swivel around to face the human.

Raf had a notebook out in his hands, which were filled with notes on a lot of things related about cybertronians. Everyone in the base had their own pages, but Barrelroller’s pages were still mostly blank. The only things he had written down was that the large mech was a scientist, he had a pet scraplet and that he was called a triple-changer. Of course, Ratchet refused to answer any of his questions while working, so he might as well ask the source. The little human could see how the team was berating him for letting Starscream get away and he thought he could take his mind off the subject for a while. “So, Bulkhead mentioned something called ‘hypoenerencemia’?”

“You mean hypoenercemia?” the triple-changer answered back, smiling at the mispronunciation of the word. It was a hard word to say. “What of it?”

“What is it exactly? Ratchet said he was busy, so he won’t answer me. Bumblebee said he thinks it’s something about a ‘systems’ flush’?” Raf replied, sitting down on one of the chair on the catwalk, scratching his head with the pen in his hand. He was currently ignoring Jack and Miko behind him, who were playing a racing game. “It sounds like a medical term.”

“Well, Bee was close in a ways.” the jet replied, happy that someone wanted to finally address the fact that he was in the medical field as well. “Hypoenercemia is like hypoglycemia for cybertronians. Instead of a lack of sugar in the bloodstream, it’s a lack of energon flowing through our cables. It has the same symptoms as the human illness and very hard to fake, since you can go offline and in stasis if you have a lack of energon in your systems for a long period of time.”

While Barrelroller was taking, Raf was writing some notes down. He watched the mech talk, noticing how his wings were moving with his tone. When he was neutral, they were hung loosely and bouncing a bit with his arm movements. When he was annoyed, they flared up and tensed a bit. His audials seemed to do the same, flattening down when he was mad like a cat’s would. He made sure to also make a note on how his wings were shaking and droopy when he was upset earlier. The little boy started to see some resemble some body language between his guardian and the jet, wings expressions and optic dilations being similar.

“YOU TRAITOR!” a femme’s voice screamed through the main foyer as a blaster shot hit the triple-changer square in the chestplates.

The shot knocked him back a couple of feet, but didn’t do any damage to Barrelroller personally. It just really pissed him off. He slid to a stop, wings helping to stabilize him before he looked up to see Arcee marching towards him. He bared his denta at her and gave a short growl under his breath. “Excuse me?!” he asked back, clearly not liking the idea of being called a traitor.

“You let him go!” the femme pushed, storming up to him and jabbing her digit in his direction. “You tricked me into giving you the keycard to the cuffs and you let him go! I knew I couldn’t trust you alone with him!”

Barrelroller just watched the femme in disbelief as she continued to rant on and the rest of the Autobots walked in from the corridor with just as a shocked expression as he had. Of course, they didn’t know that she was technically telling them the truth since the thought of an Autobot letting a Decepticon go for unknown reasons was unheard of. “Where is all of this coming from?! What proof do you have of any of this?!”

“It’s the only way he could have escaped! I’ve seen you fight Airachnid to know that you can easily take down someone smaller than you!” the blue femme continued. “If he did have hypoenercemia like you said he had, that would have made him even more immobile, so the only logical reason that he could have gotten away was if someone were to let him out of his cuffs and let him fly away! You were the only one there!”

“Did you forget how I got injured?” the triple-changer asked back. “You’re just upset because you didn’t get to fight Arachnid and you got stuck watching him!”

Arcee seemed to take some offense to that and tried to punch him in the face, which didn’t work since he was so much taller than her. He caught her arm and pulled her up to his level of sight, seeing all the anger creases in her face. “I am not upset about that! I’m upset about you tricking all of us into thinking you were on our side!”

“I am on your side! I am trying to help you all with your energon problem, but I’m so sorry that your grounders can get it through your thick helms that not all fliers are Decepticons!” Barrelroller dropped her, letting her fall to the floor and he towered over her. Rage formed behind his face and the twitching in his wings. “Now be honest, you’re just taking this all out on me because you didn’t get to avenge your partner that died because on Cybertron, aren’t you? This is all built up aggression that you have had for a long time and you’re not just taking out on me because I made one slip up.”

“Oh like you know what it’s like to lose someone you care about so much you would die for them!” the femme yelled, the last of her anger coming out and screaming it in her face. All of her cables were tense and ready to punch the mech in the face if he got his face low enough. “What do you know about how I feel?!”

“I know exactly how you feel!” the triple-changer roared back. His optics seemed to start to flicker like they did before, switching from blue to orange. “I do know what it feels like to see someone you care about be taken away from you and you can’t do anything to protect them! I do know how it feels to see someone you cared for get turned into a broken mess because of the monster that took them away! I do know what it’s like to lose someone, so don’t blame me for your failure!”

Everyone in the outpost froze, including Arcee. That last sentence was harsh, even for Barrelroller’s standards. He recoiled a bit, realizing what he said and whipped around to march off to his lab. The door slammed behind him and the triple-changer was gone. There was silence and everyone was completely confused on what in the name of Primus just happened. Well, everyone except Ratchet.

Barrelroller stared at his lab in front of him and his optics were sealed in that amber orange color as the rage throughout his frame surged every few seconds. It made him want to destroy everything in front of him and burn it all to the ground. Before he realized it, he was standing in front of his bedside table with the golden box in his servos. He looked back to see nothing in his lab was destroyed by himself on his way over, but why did he was to damage this first.

The truth was he really didn’t. He sighed, letting some of his rage out as he walked over to his primary workbench and sat down in front of it. The intricately designed golden box had the cybertronian glyphs “SS + BR” engraved in the lid and it opened up into a music box. He let the melody play and silently felt the world around him disappear as he was back in Vos, in his apartment. He could see Starscream sitting next to him, watching him work on the box mechanics as wings were overlaid. The silver seeker was humming a tune next to him as he worked, the same tune that was playing now. The smaller mech had surprised him with the music box one night, having stolen the inner workings and getting one of his friends to help him make a box for it. The triple-changer sighed, closing the box and hugging it close. “Why did I ever let you go…” he mumbled up to the ceiling.

There was the sound of the lab door opening and Barrelroller sighed in annoyance as he knew only one other mech on base had the pin code to his lab. The mech closed the door behind him and leaned against one of the other workbenches. “You let him go, didn’t you?” the other asked with an arched brow.

“I just wanted to give him a second chance! What was I supposed to do?!” Barrelroller shot back, his rage still present. “I couldn’t let him come back here! The rest of them would stuff him in a cage and throw away the key so fast that he might as well kissed the sky goodbye for the last time!”

The red and white medic sighed, giving the taller mech a sad look. “You don’t know that, Barrelroller. Optimus is very forgiving, especially if Starscream was really willing to change.”

“As if I would trust a Prime with anything.” he snarked back, giving Ratchet a small glare. “The reason we’re in this mess in the first place is because of Primes.”

Ratchet couldn’t help but give a little chuckle and smile. This was a rare occurrence from him, since everyone thought him to be grumpy all the time. “You sound just like your carrier. She used to complain about the Senate all the time. She always seemed to make Dead End a little more amusing by the end of the cycle.”

The mech rolled his optics a bit, their color being back to normal now, but a smile was forced into his face as well. “My carrier had a knack for doing that. She used to drive Sire crazy when she ended up in the medical bay. The two of them were complete opposite, but both had the bite of a cyber-wolf.”

“So, you want to tell me what really happened?” the old medic asked. “Or do I have to force it out of you?” Of course, Ratchet was joking since the other mech could probably having him in an arm lock in five nanoklicks

Barrelroller laughed, standing up and leaning against his workbench. He traced the designs of the music box with his digits before putting it down. He was going to stay something, but his voice box seemed to quiet on him. He didn’t know what to say really other than this was all his fault. “Starscream wasn’t faking the hypoenercemia, especially with Sky Call on top of it. I asked Arcee to give me the keycard so I could fix that because addressing the other problems. He fought me once his mind cleared up and that’s how I got injured.”

“I see. What made you let him go?” Ratchet pushed, giving the younger mech a serious look.

“He… He was terrified of me, Ratchet. He was whimpering and quiet and… so broken. Broken because of Megatron!” His rage came back for a second before dying down again. “I felt so guilty for that fight we had and he wanted my forgiveness so badly. So, I let him go. I told him not to go back to the Nemesis, but I know he wouldn’t go back. Not after Airachnid failed and there was a risk of everything being blamed on him. I told him if he showed me that he regretted his actions with the Decepticons, I would accept his apology.”

The medic thought on this, nodding in agreement. The old mech had known Barrelroller throughout the kid’s entire life and knew about his relationship with Starscream long before the War. He kept it a secret for his safety from persecution, but know how much he really cared about Starscream. He knew about the fight and how much it hurt him to hear what the seeker said and what he had said himself. “You think he will listen to you this time?”

“Hopefully, Ratchet. Hopefully.” the mech replied, looking at the music box. “I just want him to be safe from Megatron, that’s all. Megatron; he’s the evil one.”

“I know, kid.” the medic answered back, patting the span in his left wing. “But you do have to realize that Megatron doesn’t like deserters. You don’t know how strong of a hold he was on Starscream. The seeker you knew—we knew—is gone.”

Barrelroller thought on this for a moment and let his optics fill with confidence for once. “Starscream isn’t gone. He’s just hiding under a bunch of masks that Megatron has forced on him. But don’t worry, he’ll be okay. He’s a survivor. He always comes back.”

“He always comes back.”


	9. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sleepover with the kids and Barrelroller's acting weird.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoy!

“You are an idiot, Ratchet. You are a complete and utter idiot.”

The medic on the medical berth groaned and turned over, trying to ignore the constant berating he was getting from their resident chemist after he had gone off the rails with his Synth-En project. The triple-changer had been cussing him out about the entire thing ever since he had regained consciousness in the medbay after he was saved. Luckily, they had retrieved a whole bunch of energon from the mine Megatron had abandoned that would last them a while. So, the whole thing hadn’t been a total loss in the end.

Now, the only reason Barrelroller was this upset with the old mech was because Ratchet broke the first law of being an energon chemist: don’t test the experiments on yourself unless you know it’s safe to consume. That was the first thing that the triple-changer had learned in his Advanced Chemistry course since on first day, a certain black and purple seeker tried to drink some high-grade energon from his workstation and ended up getting sick for the next few days. He really didn’t want to be reliving that situation, but here he was, tending to a mech who got punched through the chassis by the warlord of the Decepticons because he thought he had the power of Primus within him.

After a while though, the triple-changer had left the medic to recharge. He could never be too angry with Ratchet, since he thought of the mech as family, but the old grump did know how to piss him off sometimes. He put a heated tarp over the ambulance before walking into the foyer to see how everyone else was celebrating their large haul of energon. As expected, everyone was having a refuel with the energon from their bounty and Optimus was nowhere to be seen. He usually ducked out during any celebrations because as the legend says, Primes don’t party.

Unbeknownst to him beforehand, the human charges were apparently all staying at the base for a sleepover. They had all their sleeping bags up on their platform on the catwalk and had brought some stuff with from for the next two days, since they were staying the weekend. Jack and Arcee had brought in pizza from Jasper when picking him up from work and Rafael was setting up movies for the night. Of course, Miko had brought her guitar and amp so he would have to remember to put the soundproofing on before going to recharge. Nothing against the type of music, but endless riffs gets annoying at some point.

“Barrelroller, where are you going?” Rafael asked from where he was setting up his laptop. He had brought a projector from home to hook up to his computer so the rest of them could watch a movie on a bigger screen than the TV. “Aren’t you gonna party with everyone else?”

Rubbing the back of his helm, Barrelroller shook his helm and sighed. “Sorry, Raf. Like Prime, I’m not a big party mech. I’d rather be in a lab making nanite boosters and recharging agents than sitting around and getting overcharged with a bunch of other mechs and femmes.”

Everyone else seemed to overhear they conversation and Bulkhead seemed really confused by his statement. “Wait, you’re from Vos, right?” he asked, chuckling a bit in disbelief. “How are you not a party mech?! Vos is like party central for all fliers! They had the best energon and engex for miles around and you’re telling us that you’re not a party mech?!”

“Well I’m sorry that I was more focused on my grades in the Academy than getting overcharged on expensive high-grade.” Barrelroller mocked back, leaning against one of the foyer walls and smiling a bit. “And trust me, a mech as big as mech at a party full of seekers would get tackled to the ground in the first five nanoklicks of being there, so I stayed away from those.”

:: _What did you do, then?_ :: Bee asked, taking a sip from his cube through his vocoder. All the beeps and whirls were distorted for a moment.

Barrelroller’s wings dropped. He hadn’t really discussed with anyone else, since no one had ever asked. A slight blue hue appeared under his optics as he scrunched up his face in embarrassment. He coughed a bit to draw some attention away from it. “Well since no one else was up in the middle of the lunar-cycle like I was most of the time, I would go to the energon storage rooms in my dorm unit and… I would bake.”

Everyone else just stared at him. It was an uncomfortable stare that made the triple-changer was to retract into his own plating like an earth turtle to hide. Everyone was silent until Bee started jumping up and down with excitement. :: _Really?! Does that mean you could bake something for us right now?! I want some Praxian Energon Treats!_ ::

That put a smile on the large mech’s face, his embarrassment lifting along with his wings. He was glad someone appreciated his talents. “Sure. I can try my best, but you sure you want Praxian Energon Treats? They’re really sour.”

:: _Yeah! I would eat them all the time with all the other scouts from Praxus back on Cybertron and I haven’t eaten them in a really long time!_ :: the yellow and black scout exclaimed, walking over and his doorwings fluttering behind him. :: _Maybe you could make some oil cakes, too? It’s a party after all and we don’t have any party food._ ::

“I don’t see why not.” Barrelroller answered back, smiling and gently resting a servo on the scout’s shoulder. He looked over at everyone else with a smug look on his face and smirked harder. “You all want anything?”

Bulkhead scratched the back of his helm, the Wrecker feeling embarrassed now to say anything. “Um, maybe some gel-filled treats?” he requested.

Arcee shook her helm, chuckling to herself. “I don’t need anything. Sorry, just still shocked that the big scary triple-changer bakes for a past time.”

Barrelroller rolled his optics as he walked past, making his way down to the energon storage rooms to get the energon he would need to make everything. Once he got everything, he went back to his lab and started baking. This took about thirty minutes to do, since the mech was pretty much an expert at his art already and he made a double batch of everything so if everyone wanted more, there would be more. He came out from his portable room with platters of baked energon goodies and a popup stand, spreading everything out for everyone else.

The first one to rush over was Bumblebee, of course, as he snatched a bunch of energon treats from the platter. He let his vocoder retract for a moment as he could shove them all in his intake in one good. The little mech silently became overjoyed, shown by how much his doorwings were flapping behind him, and ran over to hug Barrelroller around the waist. The mech jumped a bit and gently tried to shove the little mech off of him. “Okay, Bee! I get it! You’re welcome!” he grounded out through his denta as Bulk and Arcee laughed in the background.

Two hours went by and everything was gone, thanks to Bee, who ate most of it. The triple-changer saved Ratchet a plate of oil cakes and some energon treats for when he woke up, knowing the medic liked his cooking whenever he did make goodies. Bulkhead and the scout were sprawled out on the floor, tanks full and groaning happily. The mech was happy that everyone seemed to enjoy his goodies, telling him that his talent wasn’t a complete waste of time. He walked over to where the kids were watching a movie and leaned against the platform walls.

Rafael, instead of watching the movie, was on his laptop and seemed to be read through some cybertronian texts. The boy seemed to have an interest in trying to learn the alien language and seemed to be excelling in it with the help of Barrelroller and Ratchet. Of course, humans didn’t have the vocal components to actually speak cybertronian languages, but knowing the child, he would probably make a text-to-speech program. The youngest human looked up and saw the triple-changer watching him. “Hey. I thought you weren’t staying around?” Raf asked.

“Changed my mind when everyone wanted me to cook food for them.” the mech answered back, watching the movie out of the corner of his optic. “You practicing? Which language are you learning again? Neocybex?”

“Yup!” the boy exclaimed, smiling at the large mech. “I’ve been working really hard on learning on how to type it back to a messaging system. Ratchet and I have been working on it for a couple days.”

“That’s nice, Rafael...” Barrelroller replied back, smiling at the young human, but sounded lightheaded. The triple-changer pushed himself off of the platform walls, only and groan loudly and fall forward. There was a lot of pain, surging throughout his frame and he felt his plating shift for a moment, like he was initiating a transformation sequence. He caught himself before he face-planted with the floor on his servos, but felt his helm go foggy for a moment. “Scrap…” he cursed out loud as he felt his plating shift again.

“Barrelroller!” Everyone turned around when they heard Raf yell, Bulkhead and Bumblebee sitting up from their position on the floor. What Barrelroller couldn’t see was that he was shaking and panting heavily, wings tremoring and twitching on his back. His audials were rotated backwards on his helm and his optics were flickering dimly. “Barrelroller, what’s wrong?!”

Bulkhead was the first one up to help the triple-changer stand again, Bumblebee joining him a second later to help lean him against the side of the platform again. The flier gripped the side of the catwalk to help stabilize himself before holding his helm for a couple seconds. “I don’t know what’s wrong. I felt fine a moment again. Maybe I drank some bad energon, but I don’t know.” the mech replied, weirdly sounding better after being helped up. “I think I should go to recharge now.”

The triple-changer carefully walked over to his lab, his back plating shifting again as he did, and input the pin code before walking in. He closed the door behind him and locked it unknowingly to everyone else. That was the last everyone heard of the flier that night, since everyone else went to bed afterwards, deciding it was getting let anyways. All the children when to bed as well, pulling out their sleeping bags and were all pretty worried about Barrelroller after having that systems’ crash.

Now, when one hears stomping in the middle of the night on a large military base with giant alien robots, which makes sense one of them could just be walking around, you don’t suspect something is wrong. When you hear stomping in the middle of the night, something metal dragging across the floor and distant growling, then you start to wonder what else is lurking in the missile silo. And that was exactly Miko started to wonder when she woke up to see a giant bug-like shadow scurry along the wall from the main foyer into the deep part of the base. The lights were all off, since they were turned off by Arcee before she went to berth that night, which means everything inside the base was pitch dark besides the glowing of the terminal monitors.

The teenager girl just watched the shadow figure prowl down the hallway where the bots were sleeping and all the storage compartments were, making sure it was gone before she rushed over to Jack and Raf to wake them both up. She shook the both of them harshly, both boys waking up and jumping as they almost screamed seeing Miko over them. “Guys! Guys! Wake up!” she whisper-yelled at the both of them, smiling like a child on Christmas morning.

“We’re awake!” Jack whisper-yelled back, rubbing his eyes as Raf got his glasses on from next to him. “Why are you waking us up in the middle of the night?!”

“I saw something! It was really big, like double the size of that Decepticon drill thingy you drove a while back! It was climbing on the walls and it went further into the base!” Miko exclaimed, keeping her voice down. “Let’s go see what it is!”

“If it’s twice the size of one of the cybertronian drills, why would we go after it?!” Jack complained back, not believing that Miko was describing to him. “Are you sure you weren’t dreaming?”

“No, I wasn’t dreaming! It woke me up, now come on! Night adventure!” Miko cried out and pulled the two of them out of bed. Raf and Jack had no decision in this and were dragged along with the young teenage girl to go find out what the shadow figure was that she saw. The three humans travelled further and further into the base, passing where they knew their guardians’ rooms were and could hear Bulkhead “snoring” from within his.

After about five minutes of walking, they didn’t find anything. “Miko, come on. There isn’t anything here. Maybe your eyes were playing tricks on you.” Raf explained, yawning as he was exhausted.

“Shhh!” the teenage girl hushed them, holding out her hand to make them all stop walking. “Listen!”

All of them listened and heard the sound of glass moving somewhere close by. There was also the sound of snorting and growling as well, a few loud footsteps echoing from the next room over. Miko smirked at the two boys and rushed down the hallway, making the others rush after her to make sure she wouldn’t get into trouble. The room they ended up in was the energon storage room, which gave off a blue glow because of all the energon inside, but something was making a shadow in all of the glow and it was huge.

Miko was the first to peek into the room to see the giant thing, followed by Jack and Raf, but all froze before they could advance anymore. The shadowed figure didn’t look humanoid at all, prowling around on all fours and towering massively over the humans’ heads. It was digging through the energon cubes with its snout, looking for something among them, but growled when nothing came up. Its tail swished around behind it, mimicking what seemed to be an earth scorpion’s tail and knocked over some of the cube stacks. The last thing that stood out was its eyes. They were glowing a yellowish-orange, which shone brightly throughout all the blue they were surrounded by.

“Miko, what the heck is that thing?!” Jack whisper-yelled to her, looking panicked. “Why did you make us go after it?! Let’s go get the Autobots!”

“No! I want to see it better! It looks awesome!” the teenage girl exclaimed back and moved into the room, moving around the energon. She stepped over cubes and moved closer, but accidently kicked one and set it a few inches. The noise of the cube moving made the figure freeze, looking back towards the entrance of the room. It sniffed the air and started growling, eyes dead set on Miko and spread its large bat-like wings out. “Uh oh.” the girl mumbled before booking it from the room yelling, “DRAGON!!”

The two boys followed as a loud roar echoed behind them from the beast, causing them to run faster. Not everyone in the base seemed to hear the roar, but the resident Wrecker heard it loud and clear with his berthroom down the hall from the energon storage room. He shot up from his berth when he heard Miko’s voice and rushed over towards his door to check what was going on. When his door opened, he witnessed Miko sprinting past with Jack and Raf following her. “Miko? What’s going on?” Bulkhead asked.

“Run for you lives!” she screamed back as she turned the corner with her friends, making the mech even more confused.

Soon enough, the Wrecker heard pounding footsteps behind him and turned to be tackled to the ground. He groaned, looking up to see he was in between the claws of the beast the humans were running from and let out a high-pitched scream. The creature winced slightly and brought its tail up, stabbing the mech with its stinger before moving on and continuing its chase after the children. Bulkhead seemed to have passed out immediately after being stung, it leaving a hole in the side of his arm, and slipped into a stasis.

The kids made it back into the main foyer with the sound of the creature behind them, running into the medbay area and hiding behind the medical berth that Ratchet was recharging on. Rafael decided to split up with Jack and Miko and ran over to the catwalk steps to hide behind, watching as the creature stormed in with its wings flared out. Its yellow-orange eyes pierced through the darkness as it started searching for the small humans it was chasing. The beast looked over at the mech on the berth for a second, seeing he wasn’t moving currently, so it moved on.

Currently, Miko was climbing up onto the berth and reached over to grab at Ratchet’s plating. She pulled herself up and started hitting the medic’s arm to get him to wake up and help him, since no one else seemed to be coming to their rescue at the moment. It took a couple tries, but a pair of blue optics came online and the mech that they belonged to groaned with pain in his voice. The old mech really didn’t want to be woken up at the moment, but scanned his optics around the room once to see nothing by darkness. He looked over at his arm to see Miko hiding there.

“Miko, what are you doing?” Ratchet snapped, glaring at the human only to have her shush him in return. The medic gave her a confused look before he saw her pointing behind him. He looked over to see something black moving around near the groundbridge and the medic froze, not moving an inch as the beast over there seemed to hear him wake up, looking over at him. “Primus below…” the old grump muttered to himself as he watched the huge creature prowled over to him.

The large shadowy figure growled, baring its teeth and raking its metal claws against the ground. It stalked over to the medbay, tail raising in an offensive matter like it had done with Bulkhead when he screamed. It only got so far before something metal clanked from the other side of the foyer. That seemed to catch the beast’s attention, bright optics scanning over near the catwalk to see a little human had tripped over Miko’s guitar case and landed on a metal sheet by the base of the platform.

Interested, the large shadow moved over towards the base of the platform were Raf had fallen over. The little boy whimpered, having hurt his knees during the fall, but only started freaking out when the giant creature stopped over him. He stared up at it, two glowing eyes staring down at him with teeth bared underneath it. It moved its head further towards the boy to moving its claws around Rafael so that the little human wouldn’t run away. Ratchet, Miko and Jack were all ready to going in screaming and fighting when the beast started attacking their friend, but something seemed to make the figure stop in its tracks.

The giant black creature took one sniff of the human on the floor, pressed its muzzle to the boy’s midsection gently and then completely backed off. It scanned the room, sniffing around until it found Ratchet’s collection of Synth-En and growled at it. The beast walked over, grabbing the entire rack in its jaws before walking off into the middle of the foyer. It dropped the rack on the ground and snarled at the unperfected energon, moving its tail around and smashing all the containers at once.

All the green energon leaked onto the floor in a big puddle before the beast stood back, inhaled and expelled a gush of fire from its jaws. The creature sat back on its haunches and watched as the Synth-En all exploded up into a ball of green-tinted fire before completely evaporating. The only thing left of the floor was the broken glass, slightly singed. “Huh.” Miko called out, surprised as everyone else witnessing it. “So that’s what it was trying to find in the energon storage room.”

The beast’s attention snapped over at the voice and growled, making the human girl squeak in fear and duck back down behind Ratchet. The creature shortly used its wings to help it soar over to the medbay, trapping the medic underneath its claws as he snarled at him. The tail came up, stabbing the mech in the leg and making the old grump pass out into a stasis. Then, the figure used its tail to slash a gash in one of the steam pipes down by the base of the catwalk platforms. All the kids were engulfed in the steam and started coughing, soon all falling asleep because of the thickness in the air around them.

✢✢✢✢✢✢

Morning came and Arcee was not a happy camper. She didn’t get any sleep at all and apparently, neither did Bumblebee or Barrelroller. The triple-changer apparently did have some bad energon the previous night, to everyone’s knowledge, and was fine if not exhausted. The three of them all entered the main foyer at the same time to see the kids passed out on the floor around Ratchet in the medbay and a bunch of scratch marks on the floor. All of them looked at each other with concerned looks, deciding to not say anything until everyone else woke up.

Bulkhead walked in about an hour later holding his arm and limping in. Everyone else had gotten their morning energon already and the mech looked ready to fall asleep at a moment’s notice. “Morning.” he muttered, yawning.

“Bulkhead, are you alright?” Barrelroller asked, wings twitching as he looked over at the mech. “Why are you holding your arm?”

“I don’t know. I woke up this morning in the middle of the hallway and it was really sore.” the Wrecker answered back, grabbing one of the cube set out for him on the table. “It feels like I got stabbed with an antivirus booster or something. By the way, why are there scratch marks all over the walls in the hallway and on ground in here?”

“We have no idea.” Arcee replied, sipping some of her energon. “Anyone else hear roaring last night?” Bumblebee and Bulkhead raised their servos, but Barrelroller was just starting into his cube. He seemed really tired for someone who went to recharge earlier than everyone else.

The femme pounded her fist on the wall and the triple-changer’s helm snapped up, optics flickering. “What?!” he shouted out, wings twitching again. “What’s going on?”

“You were staring into your energon. You okay?” Bulkhead asked, arching a brow at the mech.

“I’m fine!” the triple-changer exclaimed, causing Ratchet over on the medical berth to wake up along with the kids. “I mean um, I’m fine, Arcee. Thank you for asking. I’m just… thinking about things.”

“Guys! I had the weirdest dream!” Miko exclaimed, running over to meet her guardian. “So Jack and Raf and I were in the base and there was this huge dragon that chased us around. I don’t remember the rest of it.”

“That’s weird. I kinda had a memory flux like that too.” Bulk replied, scratching the back of his helm, finding a dent there.

Ratchet sat up and stretched, pulling off the energon IV on his chest and looking over to where his Synth-En samples were to see that they were gone. “Where…?”

Barrelroller looked up to see Ratchet’s confused face and his wings twitched. “I confiscated them last night. I’m not letting you try and go all commando again.” he answered, seemingly knowing what the medic was going to ask.

“Barrelroller, are you sure you’re okay? Your wings are twitching a lot.” the femme asked, arching a brow at him as the large mech’s wings kept twitching behind him.

The mech looked behind him, as if he didn’t know they were twitching in the first place and shrugged it off to her. The mech then walked off to his lab, closing and locking the door behind him, not even paying attention to the large scratch marks on the outside of his lab. He seemed to be in a daze, ignoring everything that was going on with everyone else and only looking down at his energon. He slept through the entire night, so what did he know about anything?


	10. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Megatron needs some hired help to find his seeker.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoy!

Soundwave won’t say that Megatron had been furious the last Earth week and a half, but the warlord had been a tad bit more intolerable to mistakes after Starscream had disappeared from the _Nemesis_.

It wasn’t unknown knowledge that the former SIC of the Decepticons was Megatron’s whipping boy and the seeker spent more time in the medbay than actually doing his job. Soundwave, being the one who mandated everyone that went on in the ranks, knew for a fact that Starscream actually did do his job as SIC. He trained with the eradicons daily on flight maneuvers and air battle strategies. He did supply checks after a few cycles to see what was needed. He would supervise mines and did participate in battles, but sadly Megatron seemed to find fault in everything the seeker did.

No one dared speak out about the amount of abuse the seeker received, with the fear of their lives being extinguished if someone say something. With the Decepticons being an “every mech for themselves” environment, no one really cared enough to. Megatron’s wrath was legendary at this point, him being known to take to violence very quickly instead of working things out. It wouldn’t be an uncommon occurrence to see Starscream beat to scrap on the command bridge and soon limping off towards the medbay. Sometimes, the seeker would be dragged away by his master and was never seen for cycles at a time. But what did it matter to anyone else if they weren’t the ones getting beat up.

With the recent loss of another mine, thanks to a certain group of Autobots on this mud ball of a planet, Megatron was irritable to say the least. He would be constantly seen pacing the command bridge, as if he was watching for that backstabber of a seeker to show up again in an attempted plot for murder against his spark. He knew it would happen eventually, but after the incident with the Autobot medic when by and the seeker didn’t show up for a good couple of days, the warlord was starting to lose it again. The damned seeker had been his outlet for anger and he felt pleasure in putting Starscream in his place. But now, he had nothing.

After a few days of thinking, Megatron came to the conclusion that if he was going to get that traitorous, deserting seeker back, he was going to need some outside help. “Soundwave, call Treads of Tarn.” the gladiator snarled to his comrade, the spymaster nodding in return and going to find the frequency. After a few moments, the dark purple mech had pulled up the call frequency and dialed the number on the main terminal he was working on.

Seconds later, a large mech appeared on screen, sitting in a lounging chair of some sort on a bridge of a ship. Large tank treads sat on his upper arms and his optics were the Decepticon red that the entire universe had become occupied to. He was smirking to himself as he glanced over that the screen, swirling his energon in one servo before swiveling out of his seat. “My, my, look who it is? Lord Megatron hailing me? So, what’s the occasion?” the mech asked calmly.

“I’m not here to play games, Treads. I have a job for you.” the grey overlord replied, glaring slightly at the tank. “How fast can you get to Earth?”

“Earth? That little mud ball of an organic planet?” Treads asked back, looking surprised with a raised brow. “Well, you’ve seemed to have fallen on hard times.”

Megatron growled, snarling his pointed denta at the bounty hunter on the other side of the screen. “Do not mock me, Treads! If you want this task, you will get to Earth. I suppose you will want some type of admirable pay for you services, so I will make a deal with you.”

The mech snorted, tilting his cube of energon back and drinking it all in one shot. “A deal? You haven’t even told me what I am doing yet. How do I know I am interested?”

“You are under my command, Treads! I expect you to be here in five cycles, or I will come to deal with you personally!” the warlord shouted, finally losing his temper with the mech. The entire warship seemed to shake when the mech started yelling, causing all the vehicons on desk to grab onto the terminals they were working at. “Am I clear?!” he finished, slamming his fist against the terminal keyboard.

There was a crash on the other side of the screen, echoing from how the bounty hunter had slipped off this seat after he was startled. His energon cube fell out of his servo as well, which made him pout a bit. “Yes, Lord Megatron. I understand. I’ll get there as fast as I physical can.” Treads replied, standing up and brushing himself off. He was being sassy with the leader of the Decepticons for the meanwhile. “Ta-ta for now.”

The screen went blank after the mech cut off the call. Soundwave looked back at his lord to see him growl and start to pace. Of course, he wasn’t always like this. The absence of Starscream seemed to make it worse, but in the recent vorns, the once mighty gladiator was beginning to turn into a tyrant. Of course, the spymaster would never say that out loud in front of the mech. Soundwave would leave that up to the seeker went he was returned to the ship. In the meantime, the dark mech went back to work trying to spy of anything that looked remotely Autobot.

A couple more days went by before Megatron had heard anything from Treads. The mech had entered the atmosphere with his ship and was currently asking Soundwave permission to land on the launch bay. After some conferencing between Treads and the spymaster, the hunter’s ship could be heard making a loud “thump” above as it touched down outside. The warlord chuckled to himself, looking outside the large view window to the outside and thinking about having Starscream back under his steel pede. There were no deserters in the Decepticon ranks, so he would beat out whatever reason the seeker decided to leave soon enough.

“ _…We’ll be inside shortly…_ ” Soundwave communicated with Tread’s voice recording and turned back around to send a map of the ship to the incoming bounty hunter.

It only took Treads a couple minutes to find the Command Bridge from the launch deck as he entered the large room, helm high as usual. Megatron didn’t turn around to greet the mech. Although, he did recognize he wasn’t the only one to enter the room with him. He looked over his shoulder to see the tank bounty hunter, but also his companions as well. One of them was a smaller mech, Vex as he was called by his partners in crime. His dark brown and neon green plating glowed in the background of the Bridge, his optics reflecting that green color. He was holding a datapad and reading it silently. The other one was a femme, Machboost, but he could only tell by the frame, since her face was replaced with one glowing red optic. It was rare to see empuratas other than Shockwave around these times, but it wasn’t uncommon.

The largest mech bowed curtly, smiling at the warlord. “Lord Megatron, I am here as you requested.”

“Is that so? I don’t think I requested your friends to be here.” the warlord replied, remembering the last time the three of them were together and completing a bounty for him. They usually went overkill and he couldn’t have this time. He needed Starscream back in one piece. “We do not need a repeat of last time. Unfortunately, I need this one back alive.”

“Oh Lord Megatron, you have so little faith in us.” the fuchsia empurata commented, examining her claws as she spoke. “The only reason the last one was a little dismantled was because he tried to run away. That’s all.”

Megatron simply glared at the femme and moved on. “As you have probably noticed, my SIC has recently deserted the ranks and has gone a rouge. You all know him from other endeavors whether on Cybertron or off. I need you to find him and bring him back to me in one piece. I decided to call you three because he happens to be a seeker and you three had previous experience with them. I suppose you’ll need some time to discuss this among your teammates, Treads?”

Before the tank could say anything, Machboost covered his intake with her claws and tilted her helm at the warlord. “Lord Megatron, if you could kindly give us a moment to talk about the pros and cons of the situation.” The helicopter femme pulled the bigger mech away towards where Vex was still reading his datapad. She moved them away from the center of the room and only stopped when they were by the door. The empurata moved her claws from the mech’s intake, crossing them over her chestplates.

“What in the name of Primus was that for?!” he whisper-shouted to the femme. “I thought we were all in agreement to do this!”

If Machboost could roll her optic, she would. “Think with that small processor for a second. This is Starscream we’re talking about. He’s not going to be as easy as the others to trap and capture. He knows all our tricks and strategies since he was on the Pact. How are we supposed to get him?”

“That’s what you’re thinking about right now?” the tank asked her, arching a brow. “Oh come on! We’ve captured seekers like him multiple times before. Even better, Lord Megatron might even let us keep him if he decides to get rid of him. Colony mechs would pay a large fortune for a seeker with his looks and wings.”

Vex sighed, listening to the two good back and forth in an argument for the next couple of breems. He looked down at his datapad and started to write up a strategy for capturing Starscream by referencing the other hunts Machboost and Treads had done. Each of them had gone after the Vosian Air Commander once in their Seeker Hunter careers. They had all failed, but this was the first time they were working together to capture him. Machboost was a flier, but also a melee expert. Treads was their firepower and long range mech, since his tank gun was able to shoot at long distances. Vex, himself, worked with the actual traps and plans, so as long as they didn’t have any further complications, they should be fine. It was just another job.

The silent mech finished complying a bunch of strategies and made sure they were all somewhat compatible together. His neon green followed his planning around the datapad as he typed it out. The other two had started arguing about each other’s hunting skills now and it was starting to get really childish. One of this groups many flaws, he guess. He made room for error in the plan, in case this bickering started up again. Vex hated being the oldest out of the two of them, even if it was only by two vorns. He finished and sent the plan schematics over their linked comm. He hoped it would get them to stop arguing.

Fortunately, he was right and the two only glared at each other when they opened the message. Both of them read through it and made surprised expressions. “Huh, that might work.” Mach replied, nodding towards the other two. “As long as Treads can shoot straight, that is.”

“Yes, I agree as well.” Treads snapped back towards the empurata femme. “If you can fly in a straight line, then this should go swimmingly.”

The small mech gave both of them a deadpanned expression and face-palmed. Both of them were a lost cause, he swore to himself. He walked in between them and slapped their arms, pointing over to Megatron. The warlord seemed to be glaring at them and waiting for their reply.

Machboost and Treads both looked over and smiled sheepishly. The copter decided to take an unspoken initiative and walked over to the leader of the Decepticons. The tank was glaring at her back, but she didn’t care. She thought she was the most mature out of all of them, so she decided to take lead. In any case, the empurata was the only who actually spent the most time around the snarky air commander so she was appointing herself leader of the group for the moment.

“Lord Megatron, we have all formulated a plan to retrieving your second and will happy return him to you as soon as possible.” she replied, smiling a little too enthusiastically.

Megatron arched his brows and smiled a bit. Although he doubted that statement, if they failed, he could force the three of them to stick around longer. His ranking officers seemed to be lacking a bit as of late, at least the once he knew were loyal to him. Airachnid was a loose cannon most of the time and was as bad as Starscream. That left only Breakdown, Soundwave and Knockout, which was not a very impressive collection. “Excellent. I am sure you are planning on starting right away?”

Machboost, being Machboost, seemed to start to egg some stuff out of the warlord. She had a thing for doing this. “Maybe some energon and a rest first before we go off. We did fly here all the way from the outer reaches of this galaxy.” she cooed, leaning against one of the nearby terminal so that she could pose in front of her leader. She flared her rotors out from behind her, her body language having to make up for her lack of face.

The tank and the small mech across the room from her both gave the femme the “you’re kidding me” look before Treads decided that energon and a quick recharge before they left wasn’t such a bad idea. Megatron, of course, had other ideas. “Must I remind you who’s command you are under, Machboost, or must I beat it into the side of your misshapen helm?!” the warlord snarled, the sound of the fusion cannon on his arm charging up. The femme’s rotors dropped as she realized she messed up and backed further into the terminal as if it was going to separate them anymore.

“O-Of course it’s yours, my lord.” she replied, optic shining bright with nervousness and false joy. She kept looking between the cannon and the mech as she tried to formulate some kind of explanation. “I was just asking if my friends and I were allowed to take a small amount of time to refuel before we head out to find your seeker for you.”

Before Megatron could shout anything back, Soundwave received a comm from Breakdown and opened up a groundbridge on the deck walkway. Two seconds later, the aforementioned ex-Wrecker and his medic companion came barging through the swirling vortex before it closed behind them. Both of them had smoke steaming off from their plating as it was charred from each blaster fire or an explosion. Megatron did not look impressed, but Machboost was happy she got the chance to slip away from the active cannon by her side. She slipped over to where Treads and Vex were, and the three of them began to listen into the upcoming conversation.

Knockout was the first one to sit up, groaning as his partner slowly pushed himself up as well. He looked up to see Megatron looming over him and screamed a bit, scrambling onto his pedes. “L-Lord Megatron! I wasn’t expecting you to be on the bridge at the moment!” Knockout exclaimed in a panic. “Breakdown and I were just coming back from the mines and we um… we ran into a small problem on the way out! That’s all!”

Megatron growled as he watched Breakdown stand up as well. The ex-Wrecker seemed to realize as well that their liege was standing right in front of him and stood back a bit. The ash covered medic took cover behind the larger mech and peeked out from behind him. Nothing ended well when the warlord was _this_ mad, and frankly, Knockout wanted to avoid being Megatron’s next punching bag. “You let the Autobots secure another mine?!” the scarred mech yelled at the two, fists clenching.

“Um in all honesty, Lord Megatron, we were outmatched.” Breakdown bravely spoke up, uneasy about the fact that he might get hit in the face in a second and lose the other optic. “Even though Soundwave keeps the mine’s energy frequencies hidden from most scanners, they keep one finding them. And with this new mech they have, the guards and I can’t really stand against him that easily.”

Megatron narrowed his gaze. “Oh really, Breakdown? You want me to believe that another tiny little Autobot is stopping you from protecting a simple mine?”

Knockout clearly his throat nervously, chuckling a bit and gripping onto Breakdown’s black plating for his own personal safety. “He’s not exactly ‘tiny’, Lord Megatron. He’s huge, larger than Prime even. He was able to fend off most of the guards and even got a few good hits on Breakdown and I while we were there. I wouldn’t be surprised if this was the same triple-changer that Airachnid had encountered in that cave system a few months back.”

That got the three Seeker Hunters to look up from their inner circle for a moment, hearing the word, “triple-changer” and it causing a few memories to pop up in their processors. The three of them bore hard stares at the medic and his assistant while a random thoughts were shared between them about the past. He couldn’t really be alive still, could he? Vex took a deep vent and started typing something in on his datapad while Treads and Mach gave each other panicked looks.

“A triple-changer, y-you say?” the largest hunter asked the small medic, drawing the conversation towards him. The frightened medic, trying to avoid his lord’s gaze, nodded at the tank’s question. Treads smiled nervously, vents hitching for a second. “Right, and this triple-changer you saw wouldn’t have happened to have navy-blue plating with dark grey accents, would he?”

Knockout arched a brow at the question and gave the mech a confused look. “I don’t know why you’re being that specific about it, but I suppose he did.”

“Large audial fins and seeker helm crest?” Treads continued to ask, just for clarification. “Large primary wings and small secondary wings?”

“Yeah.” Breakdown replied, thinking back in his memory to see that. “The mech also got some powerful pede thrusters. He dented in my chestplates with one kick.”

The empurata growled loudly, whipping around to face the two mechs in their group of three. “I thought you two got rid of him before the Exodus! Or was that another one of your stupid tall-tales that you used to get me to join your stupid group!?”

“I did!” Treads argued back. “Vex and I dropped him off with Cyclops before the evacuation from Kaon happened and the Autobot reported no fliers from their fraction came off from Cybertron! It’s not my fault that he got away!”

Megatron seemed to gain some sort of interest in this mech from what he was hearing from his hired help and from his officers. No one has told him who this new mech is, even Soundwave couldn’t pull up a good file on the mech for him. “I see you three have some information of the Autobot’s newest member here on Earth. How do you know this mech?” he asked, brows arched.

Machboost gave a snort and a hard laugh. She curled inward a bit because of it and it only took her a second from her attitude to go from joyful to psycho. She pounded her fist onto the nearby wall, which made a dent in the way. “How do we know that mech, Lord Megatron? That is Barrelroller! He was the one that made me into this!” she shouted, point to her single optic with her servo not in the wall. “He was the only to have Vex’s voice box removed and the one to ruin all of our lives during the Golden Age! You expect us to go out there and find a seeker with him still alive?!”

The spymaster at the terminal already started to research this mech by description, digging through a ton of files as the rest of them continued their conversation. Megatron didn’t seem as concerned as the others were. “I don’t see how one mech can make you so paranoid.” he complained to them. “You aren’t backing out, are you?”

“We’re not backing out!” Treads reassured, even though there was a nervous edge to his voice. “We’re just being precaution about the fact that we’re going after Starscream while Barrelroller is still alive. As evident by Machboost and Vex, the mech has done more than a fair share of damage to the Seeker Hunter business while in the Golden Age and is for some reason he were to find out we were doing such things again, he would have the open opportunity to finish off what he started. If he finds out we’re going after Starscream, I really don’t want to see the outcome of that.”

“I don’t care if you have to lose a limb! Starscream was my second and he holds valuable information about the Decepticon cause that I cannot let Prime get his servos on!” Megatron growled, forcing the three hunter upright and slowly moving towards the door. “You will get me my seeker back now, or I promise you that there will be more than just a little problem when you return! I am fed up with your excuses, so I suppose you start now!”

“Of course, Lord Megatron.” Treads and Mach both answered back in slight fear as Vex nodded his helm in fear.

A cannon shot went over their helms, which made them freeze to see a very enraged Megatron behind them. “NOW!” he roared and all three of them ran from the Command Bridge. The warlord watched them go before shooting the wall again. He hated excuses. He looked back at his TIC to find him researching a few files. The medic and the ex-Wrecker excused themselves from the room and that only left the rest of the vehicons and the two ranking mechs there in the aftermath.

“Soundwave, look up this ‘Barrelroller’ for me.” Megatron asked the spymaster, smirking a bit. “I want to see what my precious little seeker has been hiding from me.”


	11. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Barrelroller is having some strange dreams and Starscream is running for his life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoy!

_There was fire. It was always fire._

_He was surrounded by waves of fire and a burning lab. Melting metal and circuitry from the ceiling and the walls were dripping down to the floor as he stood there, watching it all with chains around his wrists. Soon, there was growling and the distinct roar of the beast that the mechs had tried to contain in the lab. The beast was burning down the lab, escaping back into reality and trying to get away from the mech who turned it into what it was now._

_He stood there and watched as one of the main guards ran in from around the corner and was panting through his vents frantically. The guard knew the beast was after him. The beast hated all the guards, the ones who tormented it while in a cell and failing to function. It didn’t take long for the prowling creature to come from the shadows and make itself known. The guard tried to run back from where it came, but failed as massive jaws clamped around his mid-section and ripped it in half. The last guard was finally dead and the mech who created the monster was nowhere to be found._

_“ **You are afraid of the destruction you caused all those vorns ago?** ”_

_He looked up to see the dark beast towering over him. He couldn’t say if he was afraid or not. He didn’t know if he even had the mouth to. He just looked around at the destroyed lab and sighed, servos clenching into fists. He was angry and upset, but mostly disappointed in himself.  The creature growled and roared at him, chains rattling from the force, but he stood his ground._

_“ **You can brake those chains, but you choose not to. Do you think you deserve to die here where your foes have been defeated?** ”_

_He didn’t answer back. The beast was not talking to him, he knew this. The voice was coming from somewhere else. He could feel the shadowed figure’s exhaust over his helm and looked up to see it staring back. The same pair of amber optics looking back at each other, like if it was in a mirror._

_“ **Ah, I see. You are afraid of yourself. You are afraid of what might happen to you if your new friends discover of what you have become. Why do you torture yourself then?** ”_

_He thought for a moment and shook his helm, as if he was denying what the voice was saying. He didn’t want to be here anymore. He didn’t want to think about this place anymore. He was happy it was burnt to the ground. He was happy that the mech who made the beast was gone. He wasn’t afraid of anything but-_

_“ **You are a well accomplished mech and your work is well received. You’re already a workaholic at this point. Hmm… ah! I know why. You do it to keep yourself from hurting the mech you used to call a mate. That little seeker that the Messenger of Unicron seems to have under his grasp. You hide yourself so that he won’t run back of to his master and get himself hurt.** ”_

_The chains broke. He stood there, hunched over and growling back at the beast in front of him. He finally looked up to see the beast gone, as if it was never there. He looked around the fire to see there was no one else in the facility besides himself. He looked down at his servos and clenched them once, just to see if he could. Only when there was a sound of a transformation behind him did he look up and turn around._

_“ **You cannot control the powers you hold within you because you have never experienced them willingly. If you wish to control the ones you care for most, then accept yourself for who you are now. You may believe what you like, Barrelroller, but I am only a voice in your head. It’s up to you if you are to believe me or not.”**_

_As if the floor had disappeared from under him, he fell as the sight of the mech who had been speaking to him moved out of view. He couldn’t fly. He couldn’t transform. He couldn’t do anything but feel the spikes below him, impaling through his back._

.

.

Barrelroller woke up with a start, grabbing his chestplates with one servo as he pointed the other one out in front of him, it transforming into a blaster cannon. The mech was heaving, trying to control his spark as it felt like it was pounding out from his chassis. After a few moments of sitting in shock like this, he let his optics refocus themselves. He looked around, trying to figure out where he was and where the threat was. Something had scared him and he was trying to figure out what it is.

Suddenly, his memory jogged on him and he realized he was in his berthroom. He sighed heavily, letting down his blaster and letting it transform back into his servo. He looked down at them, seeing them shake but was relieved they weren’t claws. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and sat with his face in his servos, trying to control his air control a little better and see if he was actually capable of functioning properly.

“ _Okay?_ ” something chirped and Barrelroller’s helm shot up. He looked over at his berthside table to see his trusted scraplet sitting there on the edge. She looked sleepy, but shrugged it off as that he was the one that woke her up.

“Yes, I am. Thank you for checking in on me, Violet.” he replied, reaching over with a still trembling servo so that she could climb on if she chose to. The little purple-eyed scraplet did decided to jump on the black servo and skidded her way up to the triple-changer’s neck cables as he got up from berth. He sighed happily, loving his little assistant and walked into his lab to check on everything.

The first thing he saw has the golden box on the counter. He stopped and groaned as a million thoughts about the seeker its presence attached to swarmed his helm. He had thought about this many times and decided that there was no realistic way that he and Starscream would ever be able to court again. One, there was a war going on and there was always the possibility that one of them might die. Two, Megatron was still a probably and the only mech so far to match the warlord strength and stamina was Prime. Three, the Autobots hated Starscream for multiple reasons and would never let him stay here under any circumstances. And four, himself.

Barrelroller looked over in the small mirror he had set up by his glass equipment. He, himself, was a problem in this equation that he didn’t know how to solve. He was an Autobot, he had already hurt Starscream the first time they broke their courtship and he could possibly do it again. He did care about the seeker, very much so. He could still remember the few days he had cried silently after he had his fight with the mech and people would ask what was wrong. He didn’t even want to imagine what Starscream had gone through and he didn’t want to risk that happening again. There was a saying that, “if you love something that much, it’s better to let it go than keep it locked away”, and this time he was going to let Starscream go.

The little scraplet on his shoulder looked up to see little beads of coolant rolled down the mech’s face as he silently cried at his reflection. Violet crawled up the side of his helm and gently wiped the liquid away with her toothpick like legs. “ _It okay. You okay, Barrelroller. There no need to be sad. You my best friend._ ” she chirped to him in Vosian and nuzzled the side of his face.

Barrelroller chuckled, it almost sounding like he was choking on something. He pressed a servo again the little being’s back and nuzzled back. “You are too good for me, Violet. You are too good for me.” he replied, calming somewhat. He gently moved the scraplet onto his digits and walked over to the music box, picking it up and walking it back to his berthside table. He slipped it back into the drawer and left to leave the lab for once. He needed a fly.

Once the two were outside the portable lab, Barrelroller finally realized how early in the morning it was in human standards. He checked his chronometer to see it was only 4:15 in the morning and knew the children didn’t have to be at school until 8. Ratchet, thank Primus, had actually gone to recharge after a long night of frustration over his Synth-En formula. His other samples had apparently gone missing. The triple-changer sighed in relief, knowing that if no one else was up, no one would try to put him on scouting duty while flying. He hated scouting duty.

Violet, in the meantime, had jumped him the mech’s shoulder to the terminal and was trying to see if the medic had dropped any scraps of metal on the keyboard while working. She sadly didn’t find much, but looked up at the screen and saw that there was a red alert flashing. She couldn’t read what the message entitled, but she knew that anything flashing red was either really bad or really important.

“ _Barrelroller!_ ” she squeaked, bouncing up and down on the terminal board. The scientist looked over at her and arched a brow in question. The little scraplet pointed at the screen with her tiny leg and continued to chirp and click at him. “ _Flashy message!_ ”

The triple-changer walked over and looked at the message. It was a comm signal, encrypted but it worked on Autobot frequencies. The flashing red meant that whoever was speaking was still trying to access the Autobots on the other side, like it was recording or on air. “Hmm…” he thought out loud as he was trying to figure out if he would open it or not. It could be a trap or an Autobot in distress trying to see if anyone was on Earth. Even if it was a trap, the message would have been prerecorded and not flashing like this. He took the risk, opening up the comm link and tuning into the right frequency.

_::.-please! Is anyone actually on this stupid comm!? There are people trying to kill me and I can’t even get a stupid Autobot to pick up their stupid comm line! Please someone! Anyone! Pick up already! I-::_

Barrelroller knew that voice. He would know it even if he was halfway around the galaxy by now. The comm cut off into the static and panic set it. The triple-changer quickly tried to match up frequencies again as there was a pang in his spark. Why was Starscream trying to call the Autobots? What was the point? Was this a trap? No, it couldn’t be. Barrelroller wouldn’t believe that Starscream would go back to the Decepticons after what Megatron had done to him. Starscream promised him that he wouldn’t go back to the Nemesis.

_::-don’t want to die out here! Please! I don’t want to die out here! I-I’ll become an Autobot! I’ll let you put me in a cell, but please someone come and help me before they-!::_

The comm cut off to blank and the flashy symbol on the screen went away, meaning it disconnected on the other end. Barrelroller and Violet were already gone though, the sound of the groundbridge opening and closing in seconds of each other.

✢✢✢✢✢✢

The world was spinning, which was usually not a good thing if you are a seeker and the last thing you remember was that you were running for your life.

Everything was going great for Starscream after he had run away. He had found himself a cave on a high cliff that he could hide himself in the forest. He knew where all the mines were relatively close to him and with the five large cubes of energon that Barrelroller had sent him off with, he would be good for a long while. There was always the fear that Megatron would come after him roaming around in his processor and that made the seeker very paranoid about everything. Every noise, every creature that ran by him, he would jump and had missiles at the ready.

All he was doing was sitting on a ledge on the outside of the cage, taking a careful sip of his energon and trying not to waste any of it. It had been a few weeks and he was already done two cubes and was at 57% capacity. He really should have been drinking more, but he couldn’t waste the only energon he was given. The seeker was still confused on why Barrelroller had let him go. He betrayed the mech by not listening to his warnings about Megatron and didn’t tell him about going off with the warlord. In the end, all the beatings and the abuse was probably just a reminder of what he had done and punishment. He didn’t understand why Barrelroller didn’t kill him like any other backstabbing Decepticon.

Then, something sharp stung him in the neck. A stabbing pain in the cables there and it made the small mech jump, clutching the side that hurt with his claw-like digits. He felt something protruding out of the side of his neck cables and pulled it out, feeling some energon come out with it. He looked at the object in his servo for a brief second before knowing what it was and making a run for it. He transformed and shot off into the sky, hoping that the cybertronians he knew were after him couldn’t fly as fast as he could.

The rest of the chase was a blur for Starscream. He remembered flying through the trees way too low for a jet like himself and a helicopter flying after him. From below, there was the sound of a tank and at some point, the seeker had chased on the ground. He scrambled away a bit, tried to comm someone before getting hit in the back and something frying his circuits and systems. The mech’s batched up vision saw three figures close in on him before he passed out on the ground, the world encasing him in black.

Starscream woke up to only be in a lot of pain and feel like the world around him was collapsing. He received many constant messages on his HUD about how he had an unidentified foreign substance in his fuel lines making him sick and that everything in his systems were screwed over because of it. The room around him was jerking as well, making it very hard for the seeker’s vertigo to stay under control. Usually, turbulence wouldn’t affect him, but this time was different since he wasn’t the one in control. With one side of his face pressed to the grey surface, he knew he was sideways on a floor somewhere.

The seeker began his struggle to start sitting up. He needed to find out where those mechs from earlier took him and if there was a possibility of escaping. The small mech gave one good tug on all of his limbs to feel that he was totally immobilized from legs to arms to wings. He tried to move his helm around more to see if he was near a wall, but with his vision still impaired and blurred and his processor aches, he didn’t want to move around much. Any sharp movements could make him obtain more nausea.

Unfortunately, the room has in kept swaying and moving to the point where he couldn’t override his systems anymore to keep everything inside him. He found the wall behind him with his pedes, lifted himself up to sit on his hip joints and purged hard when the room turned too fast. All the energon he had in his tanks from his rations that evening came up and spilled in the spot he was just lying in. He sat there, heaving and his tanks trying to purge more that there wasn’t from his systems, but only the acidic bile in his tank came up now. The only thing that Starscream could do was silently curse getting hit with that dart either.

“Wow, how the powerful have fallen from grace.”

Starscream lifted his helm up slowly and looked at where the voice was coming from. He tilted his helm back to only glare and growl at the femme standing over him. He knew this femme, how could he mistake that brightly colored paint coat from anywhere else. The seeker was trying to make himself look aggressive and big, but his wings were bound behind his back and made him look more like an animal of prey cowering in fear.

“You… glitch…” he spat at here, trying to not sound like he had just purged his tanks. “How…? He locked you… away…”

The femme chuckled, her tone dark and sinister as she held the seeker’s chin so that he would look at her. “You silly little seeker. You thought you could escape me. That’s cute.”

“What do you want?... Why are you here, Machboost?” he questioned her, keeping a low growl in his tone and was trying to see more of the room he was in. “How did you find me?...”

The empurata “smirked” a bit, patting the sickly seeker on the helm. “As much as I would love to give myself all the credit, I wasn’t the one who found you. Vex was, with a little help from your master, of course. Lord Megatron was so nice to have given us your spark signature before we left.”

The mech visibly paled. Megatron sent a group of Seeker Hunters after him?! And if Machboost and Vex were here, then that meant Treads was, too. He whimpered aloud, wings starting to shake as his mind swarm with memories of past punishments for his lord and master. Beatings, bending his wings at weird angle, locking him up in the brig for weeks without flight time, and even some worse things. Starscream felt like he was going to purge again as the memories flashed over his optics.

“W-What?!” he screeched, starting to panic. “H-He hired you?!”

“Yup! He ordered us to come find you and bring you back to him.” the fuchsia color femme replied hauntingly, giving the seeker’s face a stroke and her single optic brightening. “It’s disappointing, though. I really wanted to have my way with you, but client’s needs come first so we get paid. Maybe after he’s finished with you though, he’ll give you to us and pluck those gorgeous wings right off your back if they aren’t too damaged.”

The seeker growled, watching the hunter’s servo going to grab at his wings and did the only thing he could do in his position. He moved his helm out of Machboost’s grip and bit down on the claw that was holding his helm. The femme yelped loudly, yanking her servo back to inspect the digit that Starscream had bit and her rotors flared out in anger. She changed her gaze to the cowering mech in the corner of the room and growled.

Starscream sunk back against the wall, trying to hide himself as the femme stormed over to him. “Stay away from me-!!” he cried in complete fear before he was yanked off the floor by his neck cables. He choked, struggling to bring his cuffed servos up to the femme’s arm in an attempt to break the grip. The femme hunter slammed him back against the wall, the seeker crying out when his wings were crushed slightly against it.

“Listen to me, you fragging piece of scrap.” the empurataed helicopter whispered eerily into his audials. “I still haven’t forgotten what you did to me in the Academy. You stole him away from me. He was supposed to court me, but you got in my way. You and your perky wings. I had this whole plan to win him back and get rid of you, but the officials found out. They expelled me for interfering with the school’s mainframe. They say me as a menace because of you.”

Starscream gasped for any sort of intake, his vents seizing a bit because of how his face vents were starting to close off. “But- he never liked femmes! He told- you that!” he choked out, his voice box starting to get crushed under the claws around his neck.

Machboost laughed hard, reaching psychotic levels. “I didn’t care. But now look what you did. You made me lose my precious face and servos. They removed them and made me suffer for it in a cell. Oh, how I’ve been waiting for the moment I got my claws on you. So I could rip you limb for limb and torture you so you knew how it felt to have the most precious things removed from your being. I’m sure your master won’t mind.”

“He’s not my- master! I’m- not his- slave!” Starscream cried, his vision beginning to blur as his engines couldn’t receive the air he needed to keep them cool.

“You soon will be.” the empurata pushed with a crazy glare. “Once we return you to Megatron, he’s probably going to force you into his will and command. I wouldn’t be surprised if he dug up some old slave coding in the experiment database for them to use on you. Then you’d be a mindless drone, stuck in your own head and spark. I wonder what Megatron would use you for behind closed doors.”

The room trembled. Machboost yelped as she became off balanced and let go of her death grip on the seeker, dropping him to the floor. She left behind some scratches on the neck cables, but that was all. Some of the wounds he had received while running for his life had reopened and Starscream was starting to spill out energon on the floor alongside the bile he had purged earlier. The Seeker Hunter seemed just as confused as he did.

“Treads! What in the name of Primus was that?!” the femme yelled up to him in the cockpit. “Can’t you fly this rust bucket straight for once!?”

“That wasn’t me! I think something landed on the roof of the ship!” the deep-voiced mech yelled back, not being able to tell what happened either. “Whatever it was, it was heavy and big!”

There was another large thump and there was a dent in the ceiling. Starscream weakly looked up to see it happen again and again until the ceiling broke open. The fuchsia femme stepped back and pointed her guns at the opening, only to be blown back against the wall seconds later by the amount of force the thing from the top of the ship landed with. All the seeker could see was a tall mech with large wings and audial fins. Machboost looked somewhat scared from her rotors lowering and Starscream thought it was Barrelroller coming to save him.

But it wasn’t _his_ Barrelroller. _His_ Barrelroller didn’t have fangs, claws and amber colored optics.


End file.
